LIBRARY OF CONGRE SS. 




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Review 



OF 



Colonel r. g. Ingersolus 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY, 



BY 



MRS. OTTILIE BERTRON, 

AUTHOR OF " EDITH." 






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CHAPTER I. 

THE AGE OF THE WORLD AND THE ADVENT OF 

MAN. 

The reading public is more or less ac- 
quainted with the opinions of Colonel R. G. 
Ingersoll. They had been circulated for a num- 
ber of years before the North American Re- 
vieiv devoted its pages to the eloquent pen of 
the fashionable favorite in the " Field, Ingersoll 
and Gladstone Controversy." The parties to 
this controversy are so replete with personal 
regard for each other, so considerate of each 
other's feelings, that, with an admirable excep- 
tion here and there, it is difficult to recognize 
the salient points of the dispute. 

This may be partly due to the edict of polite 
society against controversy, an edict which 
has extended its far-reaching influence to litera- 
ture, and has subdued its tone, as fashion 
has subdued the taste for colors, the neu- 
tral shades being the favorite style. These 
shades are very pretty, but when too freely 
used they impair force in literature, and in art 
they are not always true to nature. After a 
protracted prevalence of this neutral tone, the 
decision of Mr. Ingersoll's superior rhetorical 
style is refreshing, though his opinions shock 
the loyal hearts of those who differ from him. 
However, shocks are not dangerous when they 
result in controversy, which is one of the useful 
exercises of the mind, because it develops the 
latent forces and phases of its subject, while 

(3) 



REVIEW GF INGERSOLL'S 



it never injures the truth permanently. By its 
intrinsic value the latter always rises eventually 
above perversion, misapprehension and slander, 
whether they proceed from hostility or are due to 
a want of farniliarity with the truths in question. 

Liberty of thought and of its expression, 
written or spoken, is an inalienable right of 
human beings, and if some to whom fortunate 
circumstances have secured the free use of this 
privilege abuse it, this will be their own disad- 
vantage and is no reason why others should be 
deprived of it. We who entertain these views, 
but differ from Mr. Ingersoll, do therefore not 
blame him for the great candor with which he 
has given utterance to his disapproval of 
Christianity. Honesty is always preferable to 
its opposites because more harmless, and we 
gladly give him credit for the honesty he 
claims, but with like honesty we will aim to 
refute his charges. 

He says: " I insist that the discoveries of 
Darwin do away absolutely with the inspira- 
tion of the Scriptures, with the account of 
creation in Genesis, and demonstrate, not sim- 
ply the falsity, not simply the wickedness, but 
the foolishness of the sacred volume." 

He also says: "If the Bible is true, the 
science known as astronomy is a collection of 
mistakes, the telescope a false witness, and 
light a luminous liar." 

Again he says: "If the Bible is true, the 
science known as geology is false, and every 
fossil a petrified perjurer." 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 5 

It has been said of the students of the Bible 
that they go to this interesting book to find 
proofs for the opinions they already entertain 
and which they wish to propagate. They 
therefore notice only what suits their purpose, 
not what the Bible really states. This can be 
said of the students of nature with equal truth. 
Both sets of students are fallible, and in pursu- 
ing this course they are prone to err. While 
naturalists have unquestionably secured their 
position in the van of progress they, too, fre- 
quently go to their book, nature, to find proofs 
for pet theories already cherished, and over- 
look the real facts in nature ; thus they expend 
a great deal of their time and labor upon 
hypotheses. Built upon a false postulate, the 
best argument must fail, It is not unnatural for 
a zealous and often baffled student of geology 
to exclaim while gazing upon some huge moun- 
tain rocks : " If ye eternal rocks would speak, 
ye could tell the story of your advent and your 
age," and in the absence of the voice he lon^s 
to hear, apply himself to the discovery of the- 
ories responsive to his ideas, but thus far he 
has been led astray rather than instructed by 
the silent rock testimony. Whosoever desires 
may easily see the parallel stripes of varying 
width which mark many a stony mountain 
side, but the origin and age of these strata are 
still unknown. 

Geologists have demonstrated to their own 
satisfaction that rocks grow, though very slowly, 
as may well be imagined. By their growth it is 



6 ."- - REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

alleged they testify to the age of the world. 
Each strata, science holds, is a factor in a geo- 
logical multiplication of strata by years. The 
time given which is required for the forma- 
tion of one strata, it is only necessary to multi- 
ply, in years, this period of strata growth with 
the number of strata on a perpendicular line 
from the north pole to the south pole, straight 
through the earth. It is . a simple problem, 
though somewhat colossal and difficult of ex- 
ecution ; but what makes it especially tantaliz- 
ing is the circumstance that no one knows 
exactly yet how long each strata was engaged 
in growing or expanding to its present size. 
It has been stated that the stripes are not all 
of the same width ; besides it has not been 
ascertained yet whether the ratio of growth and 
time was uniform in all the strata and in all 
parts of the globe, all of which uncertainties 
are provoking to an inquisitive mind. Geology 
has not much pedigree and little antecedent in- 
formation to assist it. If it had had a succes- 
sion of geologists, somewhat like the apostolical 
succession of its infant sister, theology, only a 
great deal older, we would know all about the 
strata by this time. Rock growth is so very 
slow that it is impossible to see with the unas- 
sisted eye the advance strata make in the life- 
time of one man. But if at least as early as 
five thousand years ago some great geologist 
had initiated observation with the aid of a good 
microscope, and had transmitted his observa^ 
tions to his successor, and so on through a 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 7 

regular unbroken succession to the present 
day, we would know all about the growth, the 
ratio and the uniformity, and modern geologists 
would hope to arrive at a correct product in this 
gigantic problem of simple multiplication, pro- 
vided the microscope was all right five thou- 
sand years ago. 

Mr. Ingersoll is fully aware of the absence 
of such superior advantages, but he considers 
the evidence satisfactory without mathematical 
accuracy. He has no doubt, though the strata 
calculation has not been applied to the solar 
system yet, nor to space, that the world is 
millions and millions of ages old, and he is 
wroth with the Bible for contradicting geology. 
He seems to think that this "foolish" book is 
the cause of all the mischiefs which have 
afflicted mankind, and the superior civilization 
in which he luxuriates is due to geology and 
himself. While speaking of strata it is well 
to remember that Moses says, "In the begin- 
ning the world was without form, void and dark." 
The strata, if they have really evolved the 
earth, must have been there then, and this was 
exactly the period in which to study the strata 
question, provided man was evolved along with 
the strata and ready for work. Moses does 
not state how long this void condition lasted, 
but it must have been during the first part of 
the first day before the work of creation begun. 
Whether the term " day " implies twenty-four 
hours, or longer periods, does not affect the 
validity of the Bible, because the force which 



8 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

created the cosmos at all was as capable of pro- 
ducing it in a^apid or sudden way as by a slow 
process. 

In its present stage the strata question is 
destitute of lucid, demonstrated proof; it does 
not establish the .'■" millions of ages" claimed, 
and fossils are not " petrified perjurers." They 
are facts ; they were seen by the ancients and 
rediscovered subsequently, yet, though found in 
strata, petrification is not due to strata. How 
could it be? If no wind blew away the dying, 
grass or the wilted flower before strata could 
cover it, decay must have anticipated the rock 
movement. Even if the patient molecule could 
await strata growth, could fish or fauna exposed 
to air and the activity of decay retain their 
shape ? Could the elephant, could the croco- 
dile remain a shapely skeleton till rock forma- 
tion grew around and about it? No! Petrifi- 
cation is the work of an infinitely more active 
force. Volcanic lava could be such a force. 
Wind or water can have plunged fish and fauna 
into fissures of the rocks, covering them with 
small rocks, sand and soil, thus excluding the 
air during petrification. Crevices are usually 
narrower at their base than at the surface, 
which accounts for the presence of smaller 
fossils in the lower strata, whither larger objects 
could not have fallen. This becomes more 
probable in view of the fact that the most 
ancient strata contain no fossils. Moreover, 
the largest numbers of them are found near 
the oceans and rivers, showing unmistakably 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. \) 

that water was an active force in the history of 
the fossil. 

Fossil footprints, when not imaginary, tell of 
a plastic condition of sand-rock, and when 
found within strata at all, are also most abundant 
near rivers and oceans. Dependent upon the 
fossil testimony, the " millions and millions of 
ages" become a fanciful hypothesis. But the 
natural sciences are the special domain of fact. 
Phenomena must be demonstrated to one, or 
more, or all of the senses ; science has no claims 
upon our credulity without such demonstration. 
The soundness of the fossil postulate must have 
appeared doubtful to the scientific minds of 
some of its most distinguished defenders at the 
very moment when they attempted to vindicate it. 

Mr. Wallace says of fossils : 
"Most of the smaller groups extend through 
several geological jMnbaS." They were some- 
what mixed because buried at nearly the same 
time, and do'w/'pfove several periods. 

Professor Dana explains: 
"In the Silurian age (the age of molecules) 
appear the succeeding fish which become 
more numerous in the Devonian age, etc., so 
that the beorinninor of one a^e will be in the 
midst of the preceding one. The age of mam- 
mals was foreshadowed by the appearance of 
mammals long before, in the course of the 
reptile age,, and the age of reptiles was pro- 
phesied by the types that lived in the earlier car- 
boniferous age." No doubt a few larger speci- 



10 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL's 

mens were mixed with the smaller ones which fell 
lowest ; they do not prove successive periods. If 
fossils prove anything, they prove violent catas- 
trophes, rapidly acting forces, volcanic erup- 
tions, cyclones, and a deluge. If their mute 
testimony is falsely interpreted, whose fault is 
it — that of the fossil or of the interpreter ? 

Oh, geologist ! thou art a man of rash asser- 
tions. The breath of vEolus scatters thy cum- 
brous knowledge, thy sturdy will yields to the 
fiat of fact. 

Astronomy is not " a collection of mistakes. " 
It has furnished a great deal of reliable ^nd in- 
teresting information. The telescope is not"& 
false witness ; " it deals in facts. 

Light is not " a luminous liar," and the Bible 
is nevertheless true. It is full of useful sug- 
gestions for astronomers. Why is Colonel 
IngersoH's ire so intensely roused against 
Joshua, that grand old warrior? He was not 
an astronomer and did not write a text-book on 
astronomy for the scientific schools of the nine- 
teenth century a. c, but he had doubtless good 
reasons for this omission. During his day, three 
thousand years ago, astronomy was in its most 
unconscious infancy. No one doubted then 
that the sun took a daily circuit around the 
earth. The sudden interruption of this routine 
by his standing still was a most startling event, 
whereas it would not have made any impression 
upon his auditors if Joshua had told them the 
earth stood still; this was a matter of course; 
everybody knew it, and his enemies, of whom 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 11 

he had doubtless his full share, might have called 
him a tattler, or something else equally deroga- 
tory to his dignity. Moralists may say he 
ought to have told the truth if he knew it, but 
his contemporaries would not have understood 
him unless he had first educated them in astron- 
omy, and his circumstances were not partic- 
ularly favorable to his delivering a course of 
lectures upon the principles of astronomy as 
known to us. All things considered, it doubtless 
seemed to him more judicious to narrate the 
events in language suited to his contemporaries 
and their successors during the ensuing twenty 
centuries. This decision was fortunate for the 
fame of subsequent astronomers, and when he 
wrote in his book that the Lord said in the 
sight of Israel, 

" Sun stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou moon in the 
valley of Ajalon/' 

he doubtless thought the enlightened nine- 
teenth century a. c. would know how r to take 
him. Joshua's course therefore does ^/invali- 
date the Bible in the estimation of those who 
are capable of appreciating it. There can be 
no doubt that the good and renowned 

, Immanuel Kant 

would have been less hypothetical if he had 
studied Moses more carefully. In the year 
1755 the former dedicated to the royal skeptic 
and powerful patron of skeptics, Frederick the 
Great, his "Nebulous Hypothesis," showing- 



12 REVIEW OF INGERSOLl/s 

that the sun, moon and stars are made of con- 
densed mist. This treatise was endorsed.by 

Laplace, Herschel 

and all leading' philosophers, and nothing new, 
in this line, has since been offered by naturalists. 
Darwin did not apply his evolution to the solar 
system, nor to space, and Moses is really more 
satisfactory in his account of the origin of things 
than Kant, who was greater in metaphysics. 
It has been stated that Moses says, in the 
beginning the earth was void, without form, and 
darkness was over the face of the deep. Hark 
— a voice pierces the deep darkness: 

/'Let there be Light.' ' 

it says, and the echoes repeat : "let there be 
BgfotJj And there was light. It dispelled the 
darkness, and the light " was good. " This was 
the first day, the first creative effort on the first 
day. 

" From Ifght all beings live, 
Each fair, created thing— the very plants 
Turn with a joyful transport to the light. 7 '■ 

Botanists support this sentiment of the poet; 
plant vitality, they say, is dependent upon light, 
and animals can hardly live without it. That 
beautiful, permeating, primeval light was an 
effective luminous force, warming into life the 
timid vegetation still hidden beneath the sod, 
and assisting on the second day in dividing the 
land and the water; nor is the mysterious 
affinity between land and water severed yet; it 
still governs the motions of the oceans. On 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 13 

the third day, while mountains and plains, rivers, 
lakes and oceans still basked in the beautiful 
light, flowers, trees, shrubs and vegetation of 
every kind burst from the fertile soil, coaxed to 
the surface by its genial presence. The solar 
system was then invisible. Whether the dark 
masses already floated in space beyond the 
light Moses does not say, but it is probable. 
On the fourth day the terrestrial work of the 
luminous force was accomplished ; it was then 
dispersed, re-collected and disposed of as now 
perceived. The solar system became visible, 
the ruler of day and night as well as of the sea- 
sons, and when the work of creation was finished, 
when the blooming earth teemed with happy 
creatures enjoying a delicious existence, and 
man, the crowning effort, breathed the breath 
of life, 

" The morning stars sang together, and the sons of God 
shouted for joy. M 

This narrative of Moses is more instructive 
than any other explanation of this great event. 
Mathematical genius and improved telescopes 
may continue to discover planets and calculate 
rotations, but 

" While eager mortal eyes 
Scan rich nocturnal skies/ ' 

the questions of cosmogonic origins will find 
no better solutions than those given in the 
Bible. 

"The splendid generalizations of Darwin/* 
we are told by Mr. IngersoU, "demonstrate that 



14 r REVIEW OF INGERSQLL's 

man has befen slowly evolved through countless 



ages.'' 



This sluggish, interminable process- from 
atom to molecule, via protoplasm to the am- 
phibian, perhaps the frog, the turtle ; possibly 
by the way of reptile or the lively porcupine to 
the mammal ; it is not certain whether horse or 
ape, on account of the missing link, but reach- 
ing the man at last, Hottentot and Caucasian, 
this unattractive evolution accuses the Bible of 
"foolishness ! ,: And this because Moses wrote 
in his book of Genesis that Adam, the first man, 
was made of the dust of the ground, to which he 
is evidently doomed to return. Unsophisticated 
minds naturally prefer this simpler account, and 
it baffles their comprehension why this refined 
and cultivated age should like the other course 
so very much. It must be because it is more 
intellectual to. eat one's ancestor in an oyster 
shell or admire him in a zoological garden. 
What became of evolution when the man 
popped out of its caldron? Did this mirac- 
ulous mother of all things, after such incalcu- 
lable longevity/dissolve herself like the bubble 
* She " out of long love for her prodigy ? 

Who do believe all this except Darwinians, 
who are more Darwinian than their leader? 
True greatness is unassuming. Darwin ad- 
mitted that his proofs are not* complete. After 
securing all the aid he could from "environing 
conditions, " climate, " the survival of the fittest," 
etc., he looked to the future for his "missing 
link." An ordinary man who buys twenty feet 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 15 

of chain, takes it home, opens it and finds a 
link missing will be very apt to think that he 
has made a mistake ; that he has taken the 
wrong chain or that some one has imposed 
upon him, and he will not keep the chain. Not 
so Darwin. Such plain matter-of-fact conduct 
cannot be expected of the inventor of a theory. 
He says to his admirers, "It is all right ; you put 
in the missing link/' 

Herbert Spencer 

came very near the truth when he argued that 
"descending as well as ascending changes must 
be accounted for." If at this point of his argu- 
ment he had looked about him with unscientific 
eyes he would doubtless have set up the ^gg 
of Columbus, and would have acquired more 
fame than the cabinet of Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella, who did not succeed in doing it. 

Anthropology and ethnology are useful pio- 
neers in the fields of physiology, but they have 
furnished no information available in determin- 
ing race origin. Asia, Africa and our western 
continent teem with what Humboldt calls "the 
varieties of the human species." He in com- 
mon with all noted naturalists held that the en- 
tire species is derived from one common type. 
Darwin's evolution upwards and Humboldt's 
derivation from one common type appear like 
contradictions to the unscientific mind. These 
savants in the land of shadows must be trusted 
to bring about an agreement suited to their 
tastes; but, so long- as this matter-of-fact 



16 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL's 

world has eyes and uses them, it cannot believe 
the monkey pedigree. So long as Africans 
evolve Africans and not Aryans ; so long as 
Chinese do not evolve Caucasians ; so long as 
Indians remain Indians without a higher type 
for race improvement; so long as the lower 
type cannot evolve anything above itself unless 
the superior type is provided for improvement ; 
so long as the mulatto is impossible without 
the Aryan, common sense must believe that the 
most perfect type existed first. Evolution, so 
far as the human species is concerned, begins 
above and descends. Moses is right and Dar- 
win is wrong. Adam, the white man, existed 
first, and from him, by deterioration, the varieties 
are derived. The " foolishness of the Bible " 
is wisdom consistent with fact> and Darwin's 
evolution is a scientific failure which we con- 
sign to the admirers of hypotheses. 

Having shown that Mr. IngersolPs opinion 
in regard to the age of the world, which he 
attempts to support by geology, astronomy and 
anthropology, is an arbitrary assertion, destitute 
of any demonstrated practical proof, while the 
Bible account of cosmogenic origins is consist- 
ent with the present facts in nature, it remains 
to show the fallacy of his opinions from a his- 
torical point of view. He says : 

" Thousands of years before the garden of 
Eden was planted, men communicated to each 
other their ideas by language, and artists clothed 
the marble with thoughts and passions." 

As natural science is expected to demon- 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 17 

strate its discoveries to the senses, so history is 
based upon facts; where these fail, it is not 
considered authentic. - 'Mr. -Ingersoll refrains 
from substantiating his assertion just quoted, 
and we will consult historians in reference to it. 
The history of China was once considered 
the most ancient history, but it is mythical as 
well as all early history ; it becomes partially 
authentic about 2207 years b.c.v and authentic 
aboiit 1000 years b. c. China's best and oldest 
writer, Confucius, was born Jan. 17, 551 B. c. 
Mr. Ingersoll appears to lean upon Egyptol- 
ogists, but historically their testimony is illusive 
and does not agree with other sources of in- 
formation; but if there were entire agreement, 
their calculation would still be far below Mr. 
Ingersoll's chronology. Some historians admit 
that on the more ancient monuments only two 
names of kings appear which are continually 
repeated, and suggest that these names denote 
individuals, not dynasties. There is also great 
uncertainty in regard to the Egyptian year. It 
may have been shorter than the computations 
of time adopted by other nations. There are 
no monuments of the earliest dynasties, and 
those archaeological guides for chronology which 
have been discovered are not without interrup- 
tions and irregularities to at least the second 
half of the thirty-one alleged dynasties. The 
Greek writers upon Egypt have long since been 
considered unreliable by the students of history. 
They had a great deal of imagination, were 
fond of the fabulous, ignorant of the language, 
2 



18 REVIEW OF INGERSQLL's 

and were led astray and misinformed by their 
guides and interpreters. 

Manetho, 
the most ancient native Egyptian writer, of 
whose works mutilated fragments have been 
preserved, lived about the year 280 b. c. This 
is not a very ancient date. 

Mariette, 
who of all distinguished modern historians 
places the beginning of history at the remotest 
date, designates the year 5004 b. c. as the 
beginning of the first of the thirty-one Egyptian 
dynasties. Others assume a more recent date, 
but all agree that really authentic history only 
begins about 2300 years b. c, although Mr. In- 
gersoll assures his readers that " man has existed 
upon the earth for millions and millions of ages ; " 
which is a fiction in which he takes especial de- 
light, but which he cannot expect to be credited by 
persons who distinguish between fancy and fact. 
Numerous historians might be cited without 
results differing from the above. What is the 
position of the derided Bible in this matter of 
the antiquity of history? Numerous computa- 
tions have been made upon the three texts 
of this ancient volume. The longest of these 
gives 6984 years b. c, the next 5624 b. c, and 
that of the Septuagint 5508 years b. c, which 
differs by four years from the computation of 
Mariette, and is longer than the calculations of 
any secular historian. Therefore, if there is no 
entire agreement there is also no essential 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 19 

difference, and nothing has been found yet, 
antedating Genesis, nothing more reliable, 
nothing more consistent with nature. What- 
ever has been discovered, supports directly or 
indirectly the historical narrative of Moses, 
And why should not this writer be an authority ? 
He wrote fully a thousand years before the old- 
est Egyptian historian, of whose writings only 
disconnected fragments have been preserved. 
Moses, who was born in this very land of 
Egypt, was educated as the son of Pharaoh's 
daughter. Abundantly endowed by nature he 
thus received every educational advantage 
Egypt possessed. He had access to all secret 
knowledge, and must have read hieroglyphics 
and hieratic papyri documents with far greater 
accuracy than any modern scholar can possibly 
expect to read them. He also travelled 
quite as much as any one in that remote age; 
he lived with a Midian priest, whose daughter 
he married, and through whom he acquired all 
the knowledge of that ancient people also in 
addition to his Egyptian education. 

No candid modern historian has failed to 
recognize the importance of the Pentateuch as 
a historical reference ; all are obliged to con- 
sult it and to admit, no matter how reluctantly, 
that it is antedated by vague conjectures and 
sanguine hopes only, and is the most ancient 
reliable book. Any evidence to the contrary 
justly claiming historical authenticity, if pro- 
duced by Mr. Ingersoll in support of his asser- 
tions, will be entitled to'due consideration. Un- 



20 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL's 

til then no well-informed reflecting person can 
believe that man has existed upon the earth 
longer than from five to seven thousand years 
at the utmost. Transitory as is his life, man 

"Leaves his footprints on the sands of time," 

attesting, his existence. 



CHAPTER II. 

MYTH OR REALITY. 

Mr. Ingersoll cultivates very irate feelings 
against the " Jehovah " of his fancy, and does 
not approve of his management in anything. 
From his persistent cavil it is evident that he 
feels this world would have been a far better 
and more successful world if he had made it. 
Evolutionists may congratulate themselves that 
he did not grace the occasion. If he had been 
present he would hardly have become their 
champion, for a man of his active genius, his 
large sympathies and great aims would not, at 
that early date, have chosen their system for 
starting the enterprise. To place two atoms 
in close proximity, watch their uniting and the 
gradual process of forming a molecule, would 
have been too severe a tax upon his patience. 
But this was not all ; there was the perplexing 
strain upon the mind about finding out when 
and how vitality should seize the molecule and 
initiate that other, the organic evolution, which, 
it is said, covered as many weary cycles of time 
as the inorganic did. During that very primitive 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 21 

stage of affairs he would have preferred to 
stand on some huge promontory in attitude of 
command, and shout to the surging billows: • 

" Hither shalt thou come and no farther; here thy proud 
waves shall be stayed. M 

To see the oceans come little by little, drop by 
drop, would have been tedious, and the grander 
process more attractive. Ingersollism was rife 
soon after that sublime dawn which was not 
graced by its modern leader, in Job's day. He too 
complained of Jehovah's management, and was 
answered out of the whirlwind by the following 
command : 

" Gird up thy loins now like a man; for I will demand 
of thee, and answer thou me, Where wast thou 
when I laid the foundations of the earth? De- 
clare, if thou hast understanding." 

Job could not give a very good account of 
himself, nor would Mr. Ingersoll give a better 
one ; but he attempts to get rid of the dis- 
agreeable questioner by informing the world 
that " Jehovah is a myth." He also tries to 
shock this enlightened generation by declaring, 
"If the Bible is true, nature has a master," and 
he acquits himself in his usual assertive style of 
the opinion that "the story of Eden is a childish 
myth, and the fall of man an infinite absurdity." 

There may be Christians who never heard 
of Ingersollism, and whose associations are en- 
tirely free from persons unsound in their faith, 
but such are exceptional cases. There are 
also good Christians who declare it is impos- 
sible to be an atheist in this age of progress, 



22 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

but they are either under an erroneous impres- 
sion, or, disinclined to battle with it ; perhaps, 
unprepared to do so they persuade themselves 
of its impossibility and banish it from their 
notice. While it is to be hoped that the 
numerical importance of atheism is below Mr. 
Ingersoll's estimate, it cannot be denied that it 
is largely represented in this period by open 
advocates and by tacit admirers and adherers. 
Atheism has great attractions and is easy to 
teach. It is attractive because it relieves 
its votary of all responsibility and duty. If 
there is no God and no future, if everything 
came by chance, or was evolved accidentally by 
some accidental whim, the best thing to do is to 
enjoy the present moment and get out of life 
all the pleasure it can be made to yield suited 
to individual taste. To bloom and live for the 
day like the flowers, to inspire the air fresh 
from heaven for some hours, then wilt and pass 
away; or to roam the prairies like a buffalo in 
conscious strength and glad vitality, would 
seem, from the atheistic point of view, purer 
and more unalloyed enjoyments than any which 
fall to the lot of human beings, but man cannot 
acquire such an existence. Nevertheless athe- 
ism attempts to persuade its votaries to these 
aspirations which it is impossible for them to 
realize. They fancy they are the freest of beings, 
responsible to no God nor to any principle 
which they do not choose to adopt, but their 
illusions must often come to grief. When they 
realize this they blame the condition of society 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 2 



o 



for it, and assert that if it were remodelled, re- 
lieved of all its dross, and framed by their 
opinions and absence of principles, universal 
liberty and happiness would be the result. If 
every man could live up to his own ideal, as 
they style their inclinations and preferences, 
regardless of fixed principles, the world would 
speedily be ripe for destruction. By nature 
human beings are inclined to prefer an instinct 
life, waiving the control by a higher judgment. 
Atheists do not seem to realize that an instinct 
life is a grovelling life, which cannot be adopted 
by men and women because they are not 
animals. It is singular that their leaders have 
always rather successfully claimed that theirs 
are the strongest and most intellectual minds. 
This attitude they can no longer maintain, since 
science has withdrawn its support from them, 
though it is still promulgated by much of the 
lighter fiction, especially from abroad, books 
which must leave a sense of disappointment 
with any thoughtful and sensitive reader. 
They picture lives from which the grave with 
its worms is a relief, and only a suspense from 
this doom to the fortunate survivor. Minds warm 
with divine and human sympathies cannot but 
lament the influence of such books— all of the 
tendencies of which, earth born, tie man to the 
clod. 

Common sense and loofic are faculties un- 
known to the atheists. If everything is chance, 
why does not chance sometimes stop gravita- 
tion, or accelerate repulsion by the accidental 



24 REVIEW GF INGERSOLL'S 

relaxing of some collateral energy? Why- 
does not the magnetic needle slip occasionally 
to the east or west, and wreck the mariners on 
every ocean ? Why does not the tide ac- 
cidentally continue to flow till it mix the 
waters of the Pacific with those of the Atlantic? 
If chance threw out a force here, and a continent 
there, why does it not continue to do so? 
Again, are the natural forces the only forces 
manifest in this world ? How is it that the 
lauded atheistic intellect has perceptions only 
for matter, none for mind? The faculties must 
be very blunt which are incapable to perceive 
that exquisite design, forethought, wonderful 
management, as well as transcendent power, 
planned and executed this cosmos rotating with- 
out collision amidst innumerable compeers. Is 
it necessary to remind atheists of Paley's 
argument of the watch ? Have they ever 
advanced any logic to disprove it? They do 
most freely deny and assert, but where are 
their arguments? have they any proofs? No 
accident could possibly have produced a watch. 
Apart from material hands the mind of the 
watchmaker was indispensable to design the 
ingenious mechanism, and can they say that the 
complicated and most wonderful cosmogonic 
mechanism is the work of chance? Why, we 
ask again, does not chance continue to launch 
worlds into space, by its whims clashing sphere 
against sphere ? 

Mortal hands did not frame this cosmos, but 
a mind more ingenious and grander far than 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 25 

that of a watchmaker designed and framed 
this cosmos, and as the same watchmaker can 
make various kinds of watches, so the exquisite 
and powerful mind which designed the cosmog- 
enic mechanism which we see also designed 
and framed various and innumerable creations 
unknown to us. 

Words express ideas. The words " chance " 
and "accident" preclude the ideas of deliberate 
action, forethought and design. Whim and 
accident are the direct opposites to the system, 
as great as it is minute, which pervades the 
world. Atheism is nothing more than a capri- 
cious assertion of a wilful opinion ; it has noth- 
ing to support it. Colored by some rhetoric it 
captivates superficial minds by flattering them, 
and by an air of superior intelligence which it 
arrogates, but is unable to substantiate. Being- 
a negative, nothing at all in itself, it presumes 
to lean on science, having nothing of its own to 
lean upon. It tries to bask in the reflected 
light of science, but has really nothing in com- 
mon with it, for it is essentially unscientific. 
It is destitute of facts and of the logic of facts. 
It has only fancy to offer, while science deals in 
matter ; her demonstrations are conclusive when 
proved by visible, tangible facts. Atheism's theory 
of chance cannot be proved by any material 
facts. Chance is not demonstrable ; but atheists, 
like aeronauts, feel a happy sense of exhilaration 
as thqy ascend above the level of the plodders, 
only they don't know where they are going to 
land. They are utterly unlike scientists who 



26 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

grope their way cautiously from fact to fact. 
Science stands still at the closed orate where 
her investigation of material facts ceases and 
acknowledges a Great First Cause. She knows 
too much to adore a "will-o'-the-wisp,", and 
keeps clear of its morasses. 

If Mr. Incrersoirs leaning- towards science for 
support has led him to follow her advancing 
steps, he must be aware that the dispute con- 
cerning the origin of life has been finally settled 
after 200 years of controversy and diligent 
inquiry. During these weary centuries men 
of talent devoted their zealous labors to the 
investigation of the material world in which we 
live. No curiosity has proved more useful ; 
none is nobler, none more dignified ; when the 
desire for, and love of the truth inspire this 
curiosity it is divine, and its benefits incalculable, 
though its scope is limited to the visible and 
tangible world of matter. Assisted by the 
results of her own discoveries of improved 
lenses and laboratories, the doctrine of " bio- 
genesis " has finally been established beyond 
any possible doubt. It was settled by experi- 
ments with different kinds of earth, the particles 
of which under the magnifying glass appeared 
to be beautifully shaped crystals. Crushed to 
still smaller proportions, the crystals of one kind 
of earth gradually re-formed in the same shapes. 
The crystals of the other kind when destroyed 
in the same manner did not form again ; the 
particles were dead ; therefore they had been 
vital, they had been organic and now were 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 27 

dead, killed by the laboratory. The crystals 
which re-formed were molecular. By the laws 
of attraction and crystallization they re-formed. 
Those which were vital, possessed of organic 
life, were dead, and no power on earth could re- 
form them acrain. 

Such experiments proved beyond any possi- 
bility of doubt that life can only come from 
antecedent life. The matter in which it resides 
has no inherent power to animate itself. Once 
destroyed it is dead. 

Professor Huxley says: 

"The law of biogenesis, or life only from 
antecedent life, is victorious all along the line. 
The present state of knowledge furnishes us 
with no link between the living and the not liv- 
ing." 

Professor Tyndall states: 

"I wish it were otherwise, but in our day not 
a shred of trustworthy, experimental testimony 
exists that life has ever appeared independent 
of antecedent life. ,, 

Mr. Drummond assures us that: 

" No change of substance, no modification of 
environment, no chemistry, nor any form of 
energy, nor any evolution can endow a single 
atom of the mineral world with the attributes of 
life ; only by the bending down into this dead 
world, of some living form, can these dead 
atoms be gifted with the properties of vitality/' 

Science, laborious, anxious, conscientious 



28 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

science, when she exhausts her resources, ac- 
knowledging an original first cause or force, not 
inherent in matter, not residing in it, a force 
producing matter and all inexplicable phenom- 
enon, does not object to call this force God, 
and challenges atheism to prove its negation. 
Science is practical, and has therefore no affini- 
ties with the bauble which is a fugitive even 
from the psychologist, because it has no argu- 
ments to meet him. // is the only myth, the 
idol of light or vain minds. 

This is a generation of good nerves. Mr. 
Incrersoll does not shock the world of eood 
common sense by exclaiming with an atheistic 
shudder, " if the Bible is true, nature has a 
master, and the miraculous is independent of, 
and superior to, cause and effect" The cause 
is the antecedent of the effect. This cause he 
denies, but this cause of nature and all things 
else is nature's master, and the source of 
natural as well as miraculous phenomena. 
This invisible cause, energy or will, the first 
specimens of our race, who knew it well, called 
u the Lord God," who is no myth, but as real as 
his work, the cosmos, though invisible like thought, 
invisible like life, which cannot be created 
by man or by matter, yet is real. We per- 
ceive the effects of life, not life itself. It would 
be as wise to say life is a myth as to say God 
is a myth. This cause, this Lord God, is 
nature's master. Nature does have a master, 
therefore the Bible is true. We accept Mr. 
Ingersoll's " if" in this statement. He may 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 29 

deny the Master, but he feels the master hand 
and cannot escape it. Jehovah \sno myth. Though 
invisible he is as real as thought. Who will 
deny the reality of thought? It is the cause 
of all effects which are not wholly material. 
Rain is the result of material causes ; the car- 
tridge flying from a pistol is the effect of mate- 
rial causes. The lightning rod was the visible, 
tangible effect of Franklin's thought, of his 
mind. Newton's principles likewise were the 
results of his faculties of thought. These 
thoughts are not matter; they are of a different 
essence. Thought never dies because k is not 
matter, and not subject to the changes which 
material substances undergo. The bones and 
brains of Aristotle and Plato cannot now be 
found, but their thoughts still live and influence 
thinkers. Newton's brain has not been pre- 
served, but his mind is still a living influence. 
Ages have rolled over Shakespeare's grave, yet 
no one can read his works without feeling that 
the mind comes in contact with a living genius. 
This genius is as real, though invisible, as once 
his body was real. Man is a double being. 
What is material dies, but it requires no stretch 
of imagination to fancy that, as the winged but- 
terfly escapes the worm which is its rough shell, 
and wings its flight through the balmy air of 
spring, so our souls escape when the body dies, 
invisible to the survivors' eyes, intangible to 
their touch. 

"We are changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an 
eye." 



30 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL's 

No rational thinker can indulge the childish 
fancy that the myriads of stars which add bril- 
liancy and grandeur to the nocturnal sky are 
only so many jewels suspended in space to 
gratify man's taste for the beautiful. Life 
abounds upon earth, and these unknown worlds 
also teem with life, but man who is confined be- 
low the horizon cannot be cognizant of it with 
his senses. This life, doubtless of various 
kinds, is probably largely of a more aerial, a 
more spiritual type than mundane life. In its 
highest, most perfect form 5 it is life destined 
to enjoy the presence of God himself in the 
sphere 
" Where the smile of the Lord is the feast of the soul."' 
God is no myth. Webster's definition says 
a myth is a religious fable. God is no more a 
fable than the cosmos is a fable. If atheists 
deny the reality of the one they may deny the 
reality of the other. The master mind of God 
designed the cosmogenic machinery. His 
master hand executed, the divine will controls 
and preserves it. In the " Lord God" is the 
solution of that which we do not know. Man 
is earth-bound. By no will of his, by no effort 
of his, not by his pride of intellect, not by any 
trust in his conscious ability, can he transcend 
the limits assigned to him. Mind's loftiest 
scope is on the wings of revelation, liberty's 
most limitless realm is the glorious liberty of 
the gospel. On earth men can reach no higher. 
The terms " revelation " and "revealed" are 
here used, not as theological terms, but because 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 31 

they are pertinent; no invasion of theology's 
sacred domain is meditated. Language in its 
amplest supplies is limited, and there is no term 
which can be correctly applied to that knowl- 
edge which human beings could not acquire 
unless it were imparted from some external 
source. As the yEolian harp is voiceless with- 
out the zephyr; as the strings of the violin re- 
main mute without the external touch, so the 
human mind responds to extraneous influences. 
These may be for good or for evil. Whatever 
the religions of the world may have been, Mr. 
Ingersoll is fully aware that there never has 
been a people without some religion. The 
characters of these religions cannot be here 
discussed. Attention can only be called to the 
fact that the origins of these religions, often 
borrowed from each other, are nowhere plainly 
stated. Among all the nations which have 
been at all conspicuous in history, the white 
element predominated among the earliest set- 
tlers, and deism was the religion of these set- 
tlers, although in most cases it was superseded 
with the white race. All the ancient religions 
are extremely mythical. The religion of the 
Bible is the only one the origin of which is 
plainly stated, the history of which is a simple, 
uninterrupted narrative to the present day. No 
inspirations of hostility, no boldness of the spirit 
of opposition can avail Mr. Ingersoll in this 
matter. He cannot deny this fact visibly placed 
before the world in thousands of volumes. 
The religion which Jehovah established can not 



32 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

be pronounced a myth by any sane person, it 
being a conspicuous, self-evident fact plainly 
traceable back to its origin and its originator, 
who is no more a myth than the religion itself 
is a myth ; it is a potent factor in the affairs 
of every land. No " ifs " of Ingersollism can 
put the Bible out of the world, though individ- 
uals may manage to keep it but of their indi- 
vidual sight Its very preservation is a mira- 
cle. Untold volumes of books have perished ; 
but the Bible, in defiance of the most terrible 
and most persevering human efforts to destroy 
it, is still intact, circulates freely, and is loved 
by all who sincerely desire to know it. This 
book, though often misunderstood, often per- 
verted, and still unfathomed, is the one great 
original civilizer of the world. Not even. Mr. 
Ingersoll's strong, assertive will can blot it from 
the thoughts and hearts of men, or deny its 
existence and its influence. 

The defenders of Christianity's code, the 
Bible, cannot be too grateful to science for her 
faithful labors. She has steadily marched on 
the path of progress by the torch of such truths 
as it was in her power to discover and prove. 
In her proofs is her glory. During the pro- 
gress of their work it has seemed expedient to 
the workers in this most interesting department 
of knowledge to alter their system. At present 
scientists divide nature into two large general 
divisions, designated the " inorganic kingdom ' 
and the " organic kingdom." 

To the inorganic kingdom belong all sub- 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 33 

stances which are destitute of vitality or life. 
To the organic kingdom belong- all substances 
having vitality or life of some kind and degree. 
The line between these two comprehensive di- 
visions is, we are told, a sharp line. It has now 
been positively established, as has been stated, 
by experiments which prove beyond doubt that 
vitality is not spontaneous, but always derived 
from antecedent life. It is not evolved by the 
inanimate substances of the " inorganic kingr 
dom ; " it is imparted to its prepared shapes by 
some form of life bending down to infuse itself 
into these dead forms, animating the dead 
molecular substances with the vitality they can 
not generate. Life begins at the amoeboid 
stage, and increases in perfection till it reaches 
man. To science man is an animal of the sub- 
kingdom "vertebrata, class mammalia, order 
banana." This is all science can do to explain 
what man is. She contemplates his body, ob- 
serves him, dissects him, and pronounces him 
an animal ; but in him is marked a new division 
which the dissecting knife does not touch be- 
cause its functions cease where demonstration 
to one or all of the five senses ceases. To 
these discoveries and scientific demonstrations 
which close by pronouncing man an animal, 
science brings something which cannot be ex- 
amined and treated like the body. The minds 
of the students govern their studies and direct 
their experiments. These minds, which reside in 
no other substance and manifest themselves in 
no animal, constitute man a class supeidor to the 

9 



34 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

animal and as distinct from it as inorganic matter 
is distinct from matter possessing vitality. The 
line is sharp and unmistakable. It is defined 
by three important faculties unknown in ani- 
mals. These are: language, volition in opposi- 
tion to instinct, and the_ faculty which governs 
these two, by metaphysicians variously called 
reason, soul or mind. It is self-evident that 
language is confined to man. We exercise vo- 
lition when we do the things we ought to do, 
even if inclination does not prompt. The 
"ought" is the result of the highest faculty. In 
common with man, animals have instincts. 
Some have very intelligent instincts by means 
of which they perform skilful work ; but they 
are governed by these instincts, and never vary 
their pursuits. The bee, the ant, the spider, 
are marvellously skilful — far more so than 
man in his savage state ; but they never vary 
their pursuits. They have reached their state 
of perfection, and are not progressive. There 
are men who, as citizens of the world, are infe- 
rior to the beaver in his little world, but men 
are progressive, the beaver is not progressive. 
Some masters find their horses intelligent, and 
the elephant is considered very wise. This is 
because the instincts of animals can by man 
be sharpened to a very considerable degree, 
but, left to themselves, they relapse into their 
former condition. The horse, though seeming 
to respond to his masters caressing words, has 
never uttered human lano-uacre ; the wisdom of 
the elephant has not changed his condition or 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 35 

his pursuits. The fierce king of animals still 
lords it over the forest and the desert; but his 
condition and his pursuits are what they were 
when his roar first startled the sleeping mon- 
key and the gentle gazelle. The hungry lion 
still kills and devours what suits his appetite. 
Some birds have been taught to imitate human 
speech ; but, neglected by the teacher, they for- 
get their art. No animal has ever spoken hu- 
man language, and no animal ever will speak 
it. By a sharp line, by an insurmountable bar- 
rier they are separated from man. They be- 
long to a class or division, or scientific king- 
dom, below man, and can no more acquire the 
attributes of humanity than the mineral can ac- 
quire vitality. Man is a member of a new 
division, as well defined as those below him, 
and is as strictly separated from either of these 
divisions as they are from each other. This 
third division, which has its visible beginning 
upon earth, but is not confined to it, would be 
most appropriately called the intellectual class, 
or, as a continuation of the present scientific 
terms, it would be called the " intellectual king- 
dom." 

Science, dealing in matter, in visible, tangible 
results, leaves man on the threshold of this 
third division. She cannot explain him ; the 
soul cannot be put through the laboratory ; 
science has done her best, all she can do ; she 
pronounces man an animal and is silent. The 
master hand marked out the limits of her func- 
tions and of her knowledge ; she cannot tran- 



36 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

scend them. Where science leaves the mam- 
mal, the Bible takes up the narrative and 
accounts for his appearance. The new life, the 
improvement which science knows cannot come 
from below any more than vitality comes from 
inorganic matter, is the gift of some higher 
form of life. It is the gift of God imparted to 
the human form which, destined to live upon 
this earth, is made out of the dust which com- 
poses it. This new life is peculiar to the intel- 
lectual sphere, the class above the organic 
kingdom ; of this class, man is the only visible 
representative, standing at the base of a lofty 
and doubtless populous domain, invisible to 
mortal eyes. 

In this third or intellectual sphere we come 
in contact with evil. Animals live to enjoy and 
gratify their instincts. Nothing else is expected 
of them, though man has the power of govern- 
ing them by means of their instincts. Their 
instinct life is legitimate ; they are not respon- 
sible for it. A dog may steal a piece of meat 
from another dog if he is the stronger or the 
more cunning of the two. If man steals from 
his fellow-man, he is a thief. When he violates 
the marital law he is an adulterer, etc. ; not so 
with animals. When man makes an idol, as he 
often does, and worships it, he is an idolater. 
Did any one ever read or hear of animals mak- 
ing idols? If man tells an untruth, it is sin ; so 
that by his very sins man is marked the repre- 
sentative of a class different from the animals ; 
separated from the latter by a more distinct 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 37 

line than that which divides the inorganic and 
organic kingdoms. 

A cat may fight another cat, but she does not 
kill her. A dog may fight another dog, but he 
does not kill him. Man alone kills his fellow- 
man, and too often with wanton, shocking 
cruelty. 

This thing, sin or wickedness, which is the 
cause of nearly all of man's misery, is too plain 
to be denied. Mr. Ingersoll does not deny it, 
but is very zealous in blaming the " Jehovah " 
of his fancy for it. Nor does he spare ridicule. 
He says: "It is absurd to believe that a being 
of infinite wisdom should create himself an 
enemy/' knowing what that enemy would do. 
If he had taken the trouble to acquaint himself 
with the Bible he denounces so relentlessly 
without understanding it, he would know that 
Jehovah and evil have nothing in common — that 
God did not create evil, but is continually sub- 
duing and conquering it. 

When Ingersollism finds out why water runs, 
why grass grows, why the magnetic needle 
points to the north, facts which it admits it does 
not know, then it will have a right to demand 
to know why evil exists and how it came. 
Meantime, knowing nothing about its origin, 
Ingersollism has no right to blame any one for 
its existence. There are many " whys " which 
cannot be answered now ; they may be an- 
swered in the future, but hardly in this life. 
Milton ascribes the origin of evil to angels who 
became envious of the Lord God, rebelled 



REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 



against his authority and assailed heaven, mar- 
shalled by their leader, called Satan. They 
were defeated and hurled into hell, where they 
became addicted to the practice of passing their 
time and varying their pursuits by excursions 
to our little earth to instigate mischief among 
her inhabitants, who are compelled to wage a 
war of self-defence, more or less successfully. 
This is an opinion which is based upon observa- 
tion. Milton saw the evil in the world which 
did not arise from animal instincts only, and his 
idea of battles on other spheres was not un- 
founded. The sublimity of his poetical descrip- 
tions of those martial events must ever be ad- 
mired, but he was mistaken in assuming that the 
celestial rebellion was the origin of evil. Envy, 
which is doubtless one of the strongest of evil 
forces, must have been in existence before it 
could reach the ear of Satan and incite him to 
sin. Probably the great poet, who was devoted 
to the Bible, failed to discover the origin of evil, 
because it is not given in this most profound 
and most comprehensive source of information/ 
In the present state of Biblical knowledge it 
has not yet been discovered how evil originated 
and when it made its appearance. It is not im- 
possible that it may be co-existent with the divine 
being engaged in subduing and conquering it. 
At all events it is not at all important for us to 
be informed of its origin. The vital phase of 
the question is to know what to do in view of 
its existence. Information on this important 
point abounds. It is this the Bible is designed 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 39 

to teach us, and its instructions in this respect 
are most complete and efficient, but Ingersollism 
deeming- itself adolescent, scorns this instruc- 
tion to which it feels itself superior. It holds 
that to live in consonance with nature is man's 
highest duty and the secret of happiness, for- 
getting that this is exactly what animals do, and 
that the human species not being animals, this 
principle cannot be made successful in man's 
case, no matter how many persons have a lean- 
ing towards it. The innumerable attempts in 
this direction always have been, and always will 
be, failures, even with reason for guide. Admir- 
able as this highest faculty distinctive of human- 
ity is, the history of the world does not furnish 
a favorable illustration of its efficacy as a self- 
inspired guide through the intricacies of life. 
Ingersollism advocates the intrinsic constitu- 
tional equality of human beings; therefore it 
must believe that all human beings have always 
been equally endowed with reason. All having 
alike enjoyed the inherent guidance of this su- 
preme faculty, it is singular that this universal 
reign of reason has not long since civilized the 
savages of every clime. Reason's work re- 
mains imperfect without reason's guide. Refer- 
ring- to savages calls to mind that Mr. Ingersoll 
in his eagerness to blame Jehovah, and unable 
to deny that the Bible had something to do 
with civilization, wants to know why Jehovah 
did not give these poor wretches a Bible. He 
will probably find out the reason when some 
other " whys," which he does not attempt to an- 



40 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

swer, shall find their solution, but perhaps it was 
because they could not read it. From all we 
can learn in the present state of knowledge, 
Jehovah is not at all to blame for the existence 
of evil, and will rescue from it and from its bad 
effects all who wish it, and turn to him for his 
omnipotent aid, resolved to do their own part in 
this work of rescuing. 

When a farmer decides to plant a certain 
field in corn, he knows that weeds will spring 
up with the crop, which he must destroy in or- 
der to raise his corn. He is fully aware that 
this will be some trouble ; but he is willing for 
the work, and having good reasons for raising 
a crop of corn, he plants it, resolved to destroy 
the weeds which will inevitably come up with 
the corn. Will not Mr. Ingersoll admit that 
Jehovah could have had as good reasons for 
creating the world and the human species, al- 
though he knew that evil which he must destroy 
would appear in his creation ? 

We believe that Jehovah had quite as good 
reasons for creating the world and our species 
as the farmer has for planting a crop of corn. 
For these good reasons, which we are as little 
capable of understanding as the corn under- 
stands the motives of the farmer, God created 
man when the earth was prepared for him, al- 
though evil entered his creation. He created 
man, not with human hands, but by an effort of 
divine volition, out of the dust of the ground 
upon which it was his destiny to live. This 
happened from five to seven thousand years 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 41 

ago, and a great deal occurred afterwards, so 
that when the sage era of Darwin arrived there 
had been, and still were, a great many people in 
the world more or less unlike that first man. If 
we reflect upon this circumstance ; if we realize 
what a variety of racial descendants that first 
man has had who was created six thousand 
years ago, we can forgive Darwin and his fol- 
lowers for their mistake. If there had been 
only white people in the world, they would 
hardly have fallen in love with evolution ; it 
would not have occurred to them that they de- 
scended from a monkey, or had some other 
hairy quadruped for their great-grandpapa, and 
while the fiction is not particularly flattering, it 
is pardonable on account of the extenuating 
circumstances. Our account of the advent of 
man does not. come from the animals. They 
doubtless stared in some surprise at the first 
man ; but they never uttered a word or left a 
hieroglyphic to inform posterity of the event. 
Not so w r ith the first pair. They told their 
children all they remembered from their first 
meeting to their day of trouble, and when they 
grew old they were quite as fond of talking 
about the past and the time when they were 
young as old people are now fond of it; but 
the oldest written account we have of those 
events is that of Moses, who states that when 
everything else was ready " God said, Let us 
make man in our image, after our likeness," 
etc. This shows that man was not evolved 
from an animal, though Darwinians may think 



42 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL's 

it would have been the proper way. He was a 
very fine man who was created after God's 
likeness ; and that other new invisible life, 
which is not in animals and prevents man from 
being able to act entirely like the animals, was 
imparted to this superior human organism by 
the Lord God himself. "And the Lord God 
formed man of the dust of the ground, and 
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and 
man became a living soul/' It is on account of 
this soul which has ever since been in man that 
it is impossible for him to become an animal. 
No matter how strong may be his inclination to 
be like them, and live like them free of law, free 
of restraint, led by instinct which to gratify he 
deems his right, man cannot carry out an 
animal existence. The attempt entails a con- 
dition worse than that of animals. The human 
species belongs to the sphere above the animal. 
The visible world to which we belong has, as 
already remarked, been properly divided by 
science into the two comprehensive divisions 
called the inorganic and the organic kingdoms. 
The invisible universe of which we are unques- 
tionably members by our undeniable human 
faculties of speech, volition and reason or 
thought, is also composed of two comprehen- 
sive divisions — the intellectual kingdom, which 
is evidently the battle-ground between good 
and evil, and the spiritual sphere, the kingdom 
of God whence sin is excluded. Satan and his 
hosts will never scale the lofty bulwarks of 
heaven. They cannot do it any more than the 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 43 

mineral can generate vitality spontaneously, or 
that animal which is the most perfect specimen 
of the organic kingdom can acquire by its own 
effort the attributes of humanity. As already 
remarked, it is not necessary that we should 
know why we are citizens of this intellectual 
kingdom and participants in the contest between 
good and evil. The Lord God who placed us 
in this position had doubtless as good reasons 
for doing it as the farmer had for planting a 
crop of corn. The presence of evil in the world 
is no cause for repining to those who reflect 
dispassionately upon the attending circum- 
stances, and realize that they are equipped for 
the occasion. Would there be any exultation, 
any joy in victory without the previous strug- 
gle, without the battle? Good and evil are in 
a combat arrayed. This is sometimes a bloody 
conflict, oftener a bloodless one; but our gallant 
colonel does not approve of this kind of fight- 
ing, and does not appreciate the victories it 
wins ; but those who accept the unavoidable 
situation and are ready faithfully to perform 
their duty are convinced that there is no occa- 
sion for shrinking from it, and that the strug- 
gle between good and evil is as necessary to the 
development of an immortal species as rain and 
sunshine to fertility. 

Since it has been demonstrated by science 
beyond any doubt that the higher principle is 
not generated or evolved by the lower, but is 
imparted from above ; since vitality is an im- 
parted gift which finds its completion in animal 



44 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

life, it should be expected as a consistent con- 
clusion that the faculties which are not found in 
any animal are equally imparted from a higher 
source. So far as the lens, the dissecting 
knife and the laboratory can carry their investi- 
gations, man is an animal, though a very 
superior one unquestionably. With the new 
principles or faculties which cannot be analyzed 
by the senses, but are nevertheless facts, 
science cannot grapple; they are not material, 
and physiology's scope is limited to matter. 
This being so, can any reflecting mind, familiar 
with the laws of nature, with the law of bio- 
genesis, doubt that the new principles un- 
obtainable by the animal — language, volition 
and reason manifesting itself in progress, of 
which the animal world is incapable — also came 
from above? The narrative of Moses which 
declares that it came from above is, therefore, 
consistent with the discoveries of science, and 
appeals to every logical mind with irresistible 
force. 

The strong claims which Moses has upon our 
confidence as a transcriber of facts ascertained 
by him have already been pointed out. His 
natural talents, his education, his familiarity with 
the most ancient arts, especially that of writ- 
ing, in hieroglyphics and otherwise, point him 
out as a trustworthy historian. Students of 
history state that the art of writing is extremely 
old ; its first appearance has not been ascer- 
tained. The genealogy of Moses may have 
been based upon written or symbolized records 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 45 

of some kind. At all events the traditional 
period was short, and in that primitive era was 
more reliable than it could be when men had 
multiplied. Moses gives the names of the 
patriarchs and their ages from the creation 
down to authentic history; there is nothing 
vague, fanciful or incredible about it. Bones 
and skeletons have been discovered which show 
that the antediluvian animals must have been 
of immense proportions. This being so, why 
should we doubt that man also was of greater 
size and more enduring vitality than he was 
when history became authentic ? A more en- 
during constitution accounts for his longevity, 
and this longevity was necessary to the estab- 
lishment of the species upon earth. " Our 
general mother," as Milton calls Eve, was 
probably an immense woman, yet grace and 
beauty distinguished her and marked her move- 
ments, if we may trust the poet. If he is right 
she must have been a devoted wife though she 
ruined her husband, and there is always some- 
thing wronof when a wife does that. Adam 
lived long enough to confer with Methuselah ; 
the latter reached the age of 969 years. No 
doubt Adam and Eve told their children all 
about their expulsion from Eden, and cautioned 
them with great awe against approaching the 
fiery sword discernible in the distance. It 
must have been a touching picture, the gray- 
haired sire Adam reclining beneath a gigantic 
primeval fig-tree, pouring his griefs and his joys, 
his accumulated experience into the ears of 



46 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

his interested and attentive younger friend 
Methuselah, who on his part transmitted the 
narrative to his descendants and probably to 
Noah himself, because the latter was an extraor- 
dinarily good and discreet man. It has been 
suggested that the art of writing was known 
to the eight persons escaping in the ark. It is 
not at all improbable that those old men spent 
some of their time in transmitting the story of 
their lives to their descendants upon some rude 
material, bark or dried leaves, by tracing signs 
upon them. Those antediluvians were men of 
fresh and vigorous minds, which they doubtless 
employed. Their wants were simple; moderate 
laborsufificed to provide for their frugal tastes,and 
they had abundant leisure, which was not spent in 
smoking or card-playing, but in observation and 
contemplation, and in developing the inventive 
genius which they have so freely transmitted to 
their descendants. So superior a man as Noah 
did not neglect to take with him in the ark any 
record made, by the patriarchs of their past 
lives, of the verbal accounts they had received 
of the history of their parents and ancestors. 
Moses may have seen some of these, so that, 
leaving out supernatural inspiration, which Mr. 
Ingersoll derides, Moses possessed more than 
traditional information concerning the family of 
Adam, which doubtless preserved the story of 
Eden as narrated by the first pair to their chil- 
dren. Thus the narrative of -Moses, supported 
by the facts of science, is also a historical testi- 
mony to the reality of the Creator of the human 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 47 

species, who is no more a myth than the cosmos 
is a myth. One is as real as the other. 



CHAPTER III. 

CRUELTY EDEN. 

With his usual bland reliance upon the in- 
fallibility of his opinions, Mr. Ingersoll informs 
his readers that: 

" Millions of people reject the Bible on ac- 
count of its cruelty." 

Unable to consult statistics upon this subject 
we must leave him to rejoice in the strength 
of his cause, but familiarity with the slandered 
book induces the belief that it is possible a 
correct representation of the portions selected 
in support of this charge may modify the 
opinions of some at least of the independent 
thinkers in the camp of the enemy. 

Mr. Ingersoll's charges of cruelty begin in 
Eden. He denounces Eve's sentence, and 
finds fault with Adam's doom ; therefore we 
must enter Eden and review the transactions 
there, to which far greater austerity has been 
imputed even by some of Jehovah's most de- 
vout adorers than the facts justify. When 
properly understood, the dealings in Eden can 
but draw the heart closer to that wise and 
loving " Lord God." 

We find Adam alone in the grand solitude 
of the new world, naming the animals over 
which dominion had been given him. Feeling 



48 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL's 

his isolation keenly, he looked anxiously for a 
companion among them but in vain. He recog- 
nized thoroughly the sharp line which separated 
him from them, and made him one of a class 
of beings different from and superior to the 
animals. He had not analyzed the difference 
between the inorganic and organic kingdoms, 
but the barrier, equally sharp, between himself 
and the animal world, was plain to him. His 
companionship he felt must be elsewhere; he 
had not found it but he yearned for it, though he 
was not entirely alone in this new creation. 
His vigorous mind was not without "corre- 
spondence." The divine voice of his Creator 
who imparted it developed its dormant facul- 
ties. This audible but invisible voice taught 
him the use of language, and conveyed those 
instructions which cannot be perceived by the 
senses but require abstract thought. The in- 
visible, intangible' voice to which Adam re- 
sponded was the most efficacious means of 
establishing his affinity with the spiritual world. 
He trusted in the invisible Friend; he sought 
his counsel; to him he imparted his thoughts, 
his feelings, his longings; from him came his 
comfort. Such should be man's relations still to 
his God; he is not deprived of the opportunity. 
In Eden the audible voice of God imparted the 
word of God, but the word was continued to 
man when Eden closed against him, and it is 
his still; his to enlighten, his to seek, to lean 
upon; his to shed light upon, his path in life and 
in death. 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 49 

The relations to his invisible guide and su- 
preme instructor once established, Adam's 
yearnings for visible congenial companionship 
in his vast and lovely solitude were gratified, 
and from the invisible voice came his comfort 
characteristic of the benevolence of divine love. 

"It is not good that man .should be alone; I will make 
him an helpmeet for him." 

A deep sleep fell upon Adam, during which 
God gave him a companion as beautiful as the 
fairest visions of that sleep. 

Physiologically this episode is still open to 
discussion, but in the origin of Eve as narrated 
by Moses, may perhaps be found the cause of 
that magnetic attraction which some men and 
women have for each other, an attraction which, 
while it is one of the charms of life, is too often 
one of its greatest dangers. The puzzling co- 
nundrum of to-day did not trouble Adam and 
Eve during those early hours. There was too 
much novelty in their situation and too much to 
learn. Besides, if Milton may be trusted, Eve 
was the perfect masculine ideal of feminine de- 
votion, or she would not have said to him se- 
riously: 

" My author and disposer, what thou bidst, 
Unargued I obey ; so God ordains. 
God is thy law, thou mine. To know no more 
Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise.' ' 

No wonder Adam exclaimed when he heard 
this: "Hail, wedded love!" and it never entered 
his thoughts then that marriage could be a fail- 
ure. When he was turned out of paradise on 

4 



50 REVIEW OF INGERSOLl/s 

Eve's account, he was so absorbed in the new 
work before him that he left this question to his 
posterity for decision. It was a trial to leave 
Eden, for it was a beautiful place, devised with 
special regard for the enjoyment of the new 
pair. The fresh, invigorating air was vocal 
with the joyous songs of birds. Bleating lambs 
skipped on dewy meadows, and lowing cows 
browsed contentedly in the morning sun. Fear- 
less squirrels climbed nimbly o'er gigantic trees, 
and the thirsty deer leaped gracefully to the 
babblincr brook. Alarming- noises were ban- 
ished to a sound-subduing distance, and the 
waves of the gentle breeze, odorous with the 
perfume of countless flowers, were not yet 
pierced by the yell of the savage. Luscious 
fruit and other nourishment abounded, but 
books did not grow like strawberries in the 
grass nor like figs on trees, and Adam and Eve 
were as ignorant as children. They had no 
teachers, nor even unlettered parents who could 
impart to them their own experience. Under 
these primitive circumstances the faithful voice 
continued its warnings and its instructions. 
They were few and simple. In fact, at this early 
period only one law is mentioned : 

"Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But 
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou 
shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest 
thereof, thou shalt surely die." 

In the intellectual sphere for which man was 
created there was evil. Like infants, Adam 
and Eve were ignorant of it, therefore the warn- 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 51 

ing voice issued the command to abstain from 
the tree which in the midst of an abundance of 
better fruit presented no unusual attraction. In 
this prohibition consisted the first lesson of the 
new species in abstinence, in the subordination 
of appetites and merely material gratifications 
to a higher principle; to law, to duty. The pro- 
hibition was not the command of a despot re- 
solved upon asserting his will and power. Such 
trivial motives and feelings do not pertain to 
omnipotence. Jehovah, like a loving father, who 
desires the love of his children, gave his rea- 
sons; he argued, knowing their ability to com- 
prehend, and assured them that their own safety, 
which was dear to him, required a positive and 
strict command: 

" For the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." 
By seeing animals die Adam and Eve had 
become acquainted with death and they feared 
it. Their organizations were adapted to their 
surroundings and capable of a keen enjoyment 
of life, so that death, with its dissolution, its 
disgusting end, had great horrors for them. 
The contrast, too, between this fate and that of 
their aerial visitors, visible messengers sent as 
substitutes of the invisible Voice, immortals 
from other spheres, was extremely impressive. 
Their pure affinities were with the latter, their 
desires tended thitherward whence they came, 
where death does not enter. Some of these 
angels are probably entirely ignorant of evil, 
as ignorant and unconscious of it as the Mexi- 
cans and the red men were unconscious and 



52 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

ignorant of the existence of Europe and its in- 
habitants before the irrepressible Adamite in- 
vaded their seabound main. Others of these 
aerial inhabitants of other spheres are cognizant 
of evil without participating in it, just as God 
himself is cognizant of evil without participation 
but is continually conquering the evil forces 
antagonizing him. 

Adam and Eve were organized a "little 
lower " than the latter class of angels. The 
development of their faculties required that 
their condition should be modified by the exer- 
cise of their volition. Dangers attended this 
condition, but they were warned; and as they 
were utterly ignorant of these dangers their 
safety depended upon their obeying the warn- 
ing voice of a friend who was the author of 
their happy existence, a happiness the continu- 
ation of which depended upon their choice, 
upon the proper or improper exercise of their 
volition. 

Consistent with the matchless wisdom and 
benevolence which mark all of Jehovah's deal- 
ings, he dignified at once the material enjoy- 
ments which are indispensable to the preserva- 
tion of the life he created, eating and drinking, 
by appointing them means also for promoting 
spiritual life. The tree of life, in Eden, the 
paschal lamb of the Israelites, and the bread 
and wine of the new dispensation, were ap- 
pointed to serve his gracious, loving purpose. 
By its prominent position in the midst of the 
garden and by its attractive fruit, Adam and 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 53 

Eve were invited to partake of this fruit of the 
tree of life which they were free to gather with 
their own hands before the poison of evil and 
death had polluted their organizations, fresh 
from the hand of their Creator. By partaking 
of this fruit, which nourished the body, their 
spiritual life also would have gained vitality and 
would eventually have rendered them impervi- 
ous to evil ; so that, like some of the angels, 
they would have become cognizant of evil with- 
out participating, just as now, by the use of 
appointed means, growth in spiritual life is 
secured to the believer. 

Resuming the narrative as imparted to their 
children and remoter descendants by the actors 
in the- drama, we find Eve standing by the for- 
bidden tree in conversation with Satan, speak- 
ing through the serpent, one of his numerous 
tools in the intellectual kingdom to which he 
has access. His tool was well chosen. It is 
evident from the narrative that the serpent of 
Eden walked erect, a position to which he now 
only rises temporarily when about to attack an 
enemy. He was probably clothed in gorgeous 
colors calculated to attract notice. Eve, linger- 
ing near the fatal tree, hears a voice, which 
calls her. She looks around and sees him. 
She is fascinated by the novelty of hearing hu- 
man speech which is not Adam's, and she listens 
with interest as he speaks to her, directing her 
attention to the beauty of the tree, praising the 
fruit and entreating her to taste it. She refuses, 
but he has a point to gain and perseveres. 



54 REVIEW OF INGERSOLI/S 

She is not in need of food and declines, but as 
she looks at the tree she finds for the first time 
that it is really a very pretty tree, and she be- 
gins to feel as if she wanted to taste the fruit. 
The desire is not based upon any real want of 
her nature, and Satan fears that it will not con- 
quer her loyalty, by which it is held in abeyance. 
Eve enjoys this loyalty and has no idea of part- 
ing with it. Satan, perceiving this, finds that 
he must undermine it from another avenue. 
He attempts to vitiate the volition of which she 
is conscious. He makes her jealous for the 
independence of that volition, makes her feel 
that no one has a right to put any restraint 
upon her right to act as she pleases except she 
herself: 

"Yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the 
garden ? ' ' 

His feigned astonishment at her acquiescence 
in the will of another party than herself stirs up 
a false pride ; still, she does not yield to it, but 
explains to her bad companion the reasonable- 
ness of the interdict: 

" We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden ; but 
of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the 
garden God has said ye shall not eat of it, neither 
shall ye touch of it lest ye die." 

Believing that the fear of death has a tendency 
to confirm Eve in her loyalty, Satan attempts 
to remove it : 

"Ye shall surely not die," 
and after allaying her fear he not only stimu- 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 55 

lates her curiosity, which might still have proved 
insufficient, but he appeals to the nobler desire 
for knowledge and tells her knowledge, which 
.is her right, is arbitrarily withheld from her be- 
cause this knowledge would make her the equal 
of God himself, who objects to her possession 
of it on account of his desire for pre-eminence. 
How unchanged Satan is! When he wants 
to injure a woman, or a man either, he now 
as in Eden seeks to alienate his victims from 
the best and most reliable friends. Eve still 
hesitates, stands gazing at the serpent and at 
the fruit which grows more inviting every mo- 
ment. "God does know," Satan resumes, 
"that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes 
shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, know- 
ing good and evil. ,, He thus continues to per- 
suade, and prevails: "And when the woman 
saw that the tree was good for food, and that it 
was pleasant to the eyes," all of which she had 
not discovered before her conversation w r ith 
Satan, " and a tree to be desired to make one 
wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, 
and gave also unto her husband with her; and 
he did eat." Whether Adam was an auditor 
of the entire conversation the narrative does 
not state ; but he came over without giving any 
trouble. Satan must have known when he 
conceived this wicked plan that his way to suc- 
cess lay with Eve ; that if he could corrupt her 
Adam would fall in line quick enough through 
her. The dupes of the deceiver once ruined, 
their eyes were open. When it was too late to 



56 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL's 

retrace the fatal step they knew they had gained 
nought but the dreadful knowledge of Satan 
and of sin, and they hid themselves from the 
companion of their better days, from the wit- 
ness of their lost happiness. "Where art 
thou ? " came the voice to the secret hiding-, 
place. The voice, the relentless voice, still 
comes ; no secret can be hid from it. It comes, 
it surely comes, and it is this voice which athe- 
ists would fain banish from existence, the voice 
which shouts through the tornado and whispers 
in the conscience, " Thou art responsible : ac- 
count for thyself ;" but melodious strains of 
mercy ever temper this voice of austerity, this 
inevitable voice. 

In the present authorized version of the Bi- 
ble there is no foundation for "Eve's apple. " 
It does not say that it was an apple she ate; 
the statement simply is that she took and ate 
of the fruit of the tree, without specifying the 
kind of fruit. If a set of children were told 
by their parents not to eat of the fruit of a cer- 
tain tree in the orchard, though they might eat 
of all the others, and they were tempted to 
take the forbidden fruit, the little culprits would 
expect punishment more or less severe accord- 
ing to their previous experience of the deal- 
ings of their parents with them ; but they would 
hardly expect a sentence of death ; nor did Je- 
hovah, though often accused of this course, 
in great wrath condemn Adam and Eve to 
death as an act of revenge. He had predicted 
this result, and warned them against it, but 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 57 

compassion only marked his subsequent course, 
though death became the inevitable result. 

A mother once during a paroxysm of fever 
which was attended by high delirium gave her 
infant daughter poison, which did not kill her, 
but so undermined her originally healthy con- 
stitution that disease ever after attended a life, 
long, beautiful in its resignation, but full of suf- 
fering and disease. 

The forbidden fruit was the poison which, 
lingering long in the deteriorated and diseased 
organisms of the sinning pair, eventually re- 
sulted in death. Sin wrought the change. 
With the antediluvian species death was so long 
delayed that they probably began to doubt the 
fatal word, when eventually " the fell destroyer " 
laid some victim low. It must have made a 
powerful impression, the first death among these 
hoary people. There is irresistible pathos in 
the ever-repeated statement : " and he died and 
was buried." Though long delayed, the word 
was true. Though good and great the man, 
he died and was buried. 

Various passages in the Mosaic narrative 
and attending circumstances warrant the idea 
that the sin of which death was the penal re- 
sult was of greater moment than the eating of 
a forbidden date or fig, and that the crime pro- 
hibited upon penalty of death in the 2 2d chap- 
ter, 19th verse of Exodus; the 20th chapter, 
15th and 1 6th verses of Leviticus, and else- 
where, dates back to Eden. Eve's remarks 



58 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL's 

after the birth of her eldest son point in this 
direction ; but the conversation subsequent to 
the first murder is more conclusive upon the 
subject. When Cain had killed his brother 
Abel, and the Lord pronounced his sentence, 
Cain remonstrated with great lamentations. 
He said: 

" My punishment is greater than I can bear. 
Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from 
the face of the earth [the inhabited portion of 
the earth, where his family lived and wor- 
shipped], and from thy face shall I be hid [he 
did not want to be hid from the protecting pres- 
ence of the Lord] ; and shall be a fugitive and 
a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to 
pass that every one that findeth me shall slay 
me." 

These ''every one" were not men, or Cain 
would have called them so. He would have 
called the creatures he dreaded w T ild men, or 
savages, if they had been men of other races. 
They were ferocious monsters destitute of the 
attribute of humanity, without speech, yet not 
animals, for Adam had named all the animals, 
and his children were as familiar with their 
names as he was. Cain would doubtless have 
mentioned the brutes of whom he was afraid, 
but he called the creatures he feared "every 
one!' In his reply to Cain's lamentation the 
Lord said : 

V Therefore, whosoever slayeth Cain vengeance shall be 
taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord put a mark 
upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him." 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 59 

These dangerous types of life, nameless be- 
cause their existence was abnormal and not 
permitted to continue, designated by the divine 
voice." whosoever" and "any" the terror of 
Cain, the creations of Satan, abortive attempts 
of the latter to interfere with and destroy the 
divine plans and creatures, filled temporarily 
the vacancy of Darwin's vision. Neither hu- 
man nor animal, the results of the crime of 
Eden, they were the impossible connecting 
link not permitted to exist. The varieties of 
the human species came into being through 
these monsters and vicious pre-existing Adam- 
ites, such as Canaan was, nature rejecting 
by the survival of the fittest, or rather by 
the divine fiat of the master will, the original 
specimens and connecting links. While the 
Bible does not answer every vain, inquisitive 
why asked by the idle curiosity of man, this in- 
teresting volume gives in a later chapter a rea- 
son for the existence of the lower varieties, 
such as the Canaanites, Perizzites and the Jebu- 
sites/etc, of antiquity, which were about on a 
par with the Hottentots of the present era, the 
Bushmen, the Papuans, etc. 

When the Israelites were on their march to 
the promised land, waging war with the people 
through whose territories they were obliged 
to pass, and who would not permit them to 
pass peaceably, they were commanded not to 
destroy all these savage nations suddenly. The 
reason for this command is given as follows : 
"And the Lord God will put out those nations before thee 



60 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

by little and little : thou mayest not consume them 
at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon 
thee." 

Before Adam and Eve met their new ac- 
quaintance they felt a sense of security in 
obeying the command of their invisible friend^ 
They did not resent it any more than the 
good citizen resents the duty of obeying the 
good, protecting laws of his country; bi t bad 
company prevailed; they sinned; their eyes were 
open to their disgraceful conduct as soon as 
the fatal step was taken; they were ashamed 
then and hid themselves because they heard the 
voice. Unmindful of their concealment it called ; 
" Where art thou?" 

Adam replied that he hid himself because he 
heard the voice of the Lord God in the garden. 
Questioned concerning his reasons for hiding, 
he confessed them. 

" Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded 
thee that thou shouldest not eat ? " 

The confessing culprit attempted to excuse 

himself by accusing the woman, and it is quite 

possible that his example had a bad effect upon 

his posterity. 

"And the man said : The woman whom thou gavest to be 
with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat." 

He not only blamed the woman, but lie in- 
directly blamed his interrogator by saying, 
" whom thou gavest to be with me." He was 
evidently a man of a quick mind which took in 
all the extenuating circumstances in this critical 
moment. He disavowed criminal intention by 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 61 

blaming the woman for his conduct, and he did 
not hesitate to remind his judge that he him- 
self had given him this woman, a woman who 
would tempt him, implying that it was his fault, 
at least, in a measure. Fancy his honor on the 
bench questioning a criminal, and the latter 
charging him with initiating the crime by his 
own conduct. Would not his honor and the 
prosecution resent such conduct? But Jehovah 
did not grow angry ; the divine dignity is of 
that sublime quality which, conscious of the 
integrity of its purposes, and of its infinite 
superiority, can be gentle, patient, kind, for- 
giving and full of pity. Without reproving 
Adam, whose insolence would have been re- 
sented by any human court of justice, he passed 
on to Eve, who accused the serpent, not without 
reason, and upon Satan fell the divine fury. 
The judgment voice of Jehovah thunders 
over the trembling earth and vibrates through 
the remotest caverns of hell where the demons 
dwell : " Cursed art thou," and thenceforth the 
serpent licks the dust upon which he crawls, 
hissing impotent, poisonous wrath against his 
enemy and against man, seeking open feud or 
falling upon the latter from deceitful ambush. 

Eve does not escape, but she is not cursed, 
and she is not in need of Mr. Ingersoll's 
chivalrous railing against Jehovah on her be- 
half. The sinless Eve of happier days has 
degraded herself. Contamination with sin has 
produced the fatal result. She is materialized. 
Her instincts are intensified and have a down- 



62 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL/S 

ward tendency ; like poison the seeds of disease 
and death have entered her system, but Satan's 
victory will be foiled. 

"I will greatly multiply thy sorrow,' ' 

says the voice. Sorrow is "the uneasiness or 
pain of mind which is produced by the loss of 
any good, real or supposed." The Eve of 
Eden must greatly feel this pain of mind caused 
by the loss of her sinless state of perfect 
health and happiness; to realize the difference 
between her tempter <and her divine friend; but 
the anxieties and sufferings attending maternity 
will lead her to seek the protection of him who 
appointed her fate in mercy, not in wrath. 
Say, ye mothers who are mothers indeed, is it 
a curse to find the calls upon your affections 
multiplied ? Is the maternal love which swells 
your bosoms a curse? Does not every fibre 
of your being throb with nays in response to 
such a query? Do not your lives grow richer 
and fuller with the claims upon your love ? 

"And thy desire shall be to thy husband." 

If an increased affection for her husband is 
the antidote against Satan's influence, is this a 
curse? Is it not an increase of her own hap- 
piness? and are not her sorrows of maternity 
an increased claim upon his tender care, his 
affection for her ? Where is the wrath in Eve's 
sentence if, by the active exercise of all her 
affections and faculties, her life is richer in inter- 
est and her heart fuller of love ? The word " de- 
sire " is employed on a subsequent occasion in 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 6 



o 



a different connection, which, on account of its 
literal repetition under other circumstances, in- 
vests it with a peculiar meaning, and divests it 
of all the horror with which it appears to in- 
spire our gallant colonel, whom right-minded 
women will gladly excuse from the duty of 
quarrelling with the "Jehovah" of his fancy on 
their behalf, finding their sentence of an in- 
crease of love, an increase in happiness. 
How did Jehovah wreak his vengeance en 
Adam ? He cursed the ground, not Adam, and 
this for Adam's sake ; from pity for him, from 
love for him. Adam had degraded himself. 
By contamination with evil he had become in- 
fected with disease and death. He had estab- 
lished his connection with the world below 
him, his instincts had become brutalized. Satan 
and his dupes could not, however, remove the 
barrier established by the master hand of 
nature's Master. Adam still retained the at- 
tributes of humanity; they could not be taken 
from him, but he could be reduced to the sav- 
age, the cannibal state, which is worse than 
that of the brute. To prevent this, God cursed 
the ground for his sake. 

" Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, 
and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded 
thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it : therefore 
cursed is the ground for thy sake ; in sorrow shalt 
thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also 
and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou 
shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy 
face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the 
ground ; for out of it wast thou taken ; for dust thou 
art, and unto dust shalt thou return." 



64 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

Adam, too, shall have sorrow ; he shall have 
reason to regret the good he has lost, and real- 
izing the difference between the influence of 
Satan and the blessing of the Lord God, the 
sorrow for his lost happiness shall lead him to 
retrieve this past, and seek the favor of, seek to 
please that Friend who alone can restore him to 
happiness and defend him against Satan. His 
materialized organization and his mind, not only 
cognizant of evil, but contaminated by it, 
can only be turned from it by employment. 
He cannot become an -animal, but he can be- 
come a cannibal, whose condition is more 
wretched than that of a carnivorous animal, un- 
less his vital energies, his time and his mind 
find employment. With the knowledge of good 
and evil, a human prerogative by which he 
must rise or fall, his struggles have commenced, 
but by the aid of his divine Friend they will 
secure his happiness. Though he must earn 
his bread in the sweat of his brow, yet, if he ac- 
cepts the fate which he cannot escape in a 
manly spirit, it brings him ample compensation. 
He who ordained the law of work does not 
approve of overwork, or he would never have 
instituted the Sabbath. Adam's life and the 
lives of his immediate descendants were doubt- 
less very comfortable lives. They toiled not 
for pre-eminence, their wants were simple and 
easy to satisfy, and they lived long. Those 
dreadful drops are no curse to the energetic, 
but productive of health, and no idler, try as he 
may, can escape them. Nature exacts them in 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY.' 65 

due season from the rich as well as from the 
poor, from the idle, from the debauched, and 
the latter are deprived of the enjoyment of con- 
scious, healthy rest. Moreover, in all depart- 
ments of activity there is a pleasant sense of 
satisfaction in the consciousness of well-per- 
formed work, of which they are deprived. 
Work brings its own reward ; it is a blessing. 
The savage does not work ; what he deems 
necessary of it he puts on the woman. Is he 
happier than the civilized man? His amuse- 
ment as well as his employment consists in cru- 
elly killing his fellow-men, and these pursuits 
recoil upon him. The original race which God 
created was not permitted thus to spend its 
gifts and energies. To Adam and his descend- 
ants was given the civilizing law of work ; not 
as a curse, but as a blessing which it proves to 
all who accept it in the proper spirit, provided 
it is not selfishly intensified by the aggressions 
of aggressors. Mr. Ingersoll's pride objects to 
the Bible on the ground that " it is based on 
the idea that right and wrong are the expres- 
sions of an arbitrary will, and not words ap- 
plied to and descriptive of acts in the light of 
consequences." 

There was a period in the history of Aryan 
races when a feudal lord who beheld a fine 
tract of land owned by his neighbor, if he cov- 
eted it, did not hesitate to collect around him 
his retainers after " picking a quarrel " with his 
neighbor, or even without this preliminary, as- 
sault him in his castle, kill him or take him 

5 



66 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

captive, confine him to his dungeon, and take 
possession of his property. May Mr. Ingersoll 
be asked whether these men regarded rio-ht 
and wrong " descriptive of acts in the light of 
consequences ? " The victor doubtless ap- 
proved of the consequences; but how was it 
with the captive ? Did he approve of the con- 
sequences? Hardly. It is unsafe to determine 
by the consequences what is right and what is 
wrong, because there would be no agreement 
of opinion and a lawless state. The rule of the 
stronger would be the consequence. Law 
should be a protection ; it should guard the 
rights and safety of the parties least able to 
protect themselves. While in the course of 
history there have probably been as many bad 
laws enacted as good ones, yet law is more de- 
sirable than the absence of it. Its i7nprovement, 
not its abolition, is the object of civilization. 
Mr. Ingersoll's pride does not revolt against 
obeying the laws of his country framed by 
human legislators ; but it appears to kindle his 
spirit of resistance to be suspected of loyalty in 
regard to the law of God. This being, he 
seems convinced, has no right to impose any 
legal restraint upon him, and yet all the good 
laws the world has ever known are directly or 
indirectly derived from that original source of 
the ideas of right and wrong. Suppose an 
attempt were made to reverse the decalogue, 
what would be the effect? If the command 
were, take all you can from your neighbor, 
would prosperity be the result? This is done 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 67 

often enough in violation, evasion and defiance 
of law. Would life be more pleasant if that 
were authorized? If the law said kill whomso- 
ever you choose, would peace ensue? If the 
law said commit adultery, live by the example 
of the brutes around you, would the ideal of 
atheism be realized ? 

It must appear to every reflecting- mind that 
the consequences of the actions forbidden by 
the ten commandments had been well considered 
before they were promulgated, and that even so 
refined, just and benevolent a man as Mr. In- 
gersoll need not blush to own allegiance to the 
divine law. 

A judicious exchange or interchange of rights 
and duties is the foundation of society in all its 
phases. A large business man, for instance, 
employs other men. He gives directions, or- 
ders concerning the business. Sometimes he 
gives his reasons for them ; as often he does 
not give them, yet they are obeyed. In his 
dealings in Eden, Mr. Ingersoll's Jehovah, whom 
he is so very eager to paint in the colors of a 
despot, gave his reasons for his command; he 
explained the consequences: "In the day thou 
eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." This is 
the very negation of irresponsible, despotic as- 
sertion. If the ten commandments and all the 
laws to which they have given rise were oblit- 
erated, the human species would not become 
animals, for this they can never become, no mat- 
ter how desirable it might seem to some of its 
representatives, but a species of cannibals. 



68 REVIEW OF INGERSOLl/S 

The banished Adam had experience; he 
knew the difference between the influence and 
friendship of Satan, the source of evil inspira- 
tions, and that of Jehovah, and it may be safely 
inferred from the absence of any subsequent 
recorded events, that he recognized the judi- 
ciousness of the sentence imposing work upon 
him, and neither repined nor rebelled against it, 
for he was a fine, hardy man who lived to a 
great age. He also brought up his children to 
walk with the Lord and love him ; though he 
did not succeed with Cain; the latter was evi- 
dently the "black sheep," the exception, and all 
Adam's other children were more like Abel. 

It would be interesting to know what his rela- 
tions were to Eve after the disgrace she brought 
upon him. The Mosaic narrative is silent on 
the subject, but he doubtless recanted some of 
his former sentiments, which according to Milton 
showed an unsound absence of the proper bal- 
ance of mind where she was concerned, for he 
declared that: 

"All higher knowledge in her presence falls 
Degraded ; wisdom in discourse with her 
Loses discountenanced, and like folly shows; 
Authority and reason on her wait, 
As one intended first, not after made 
Occasionally ; and, to consummate all, 
Greatness of mind and nobleness their seat 
Build in her loveliest, and create an awe 
About her, as a guard angelic placed.' ' 

He surrendered himself so completely to that 
divinely beautiful, intellectual and fascinating 
woman in an idolizing admiration that his mind 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 69 

was growing weak; his centripetal force was 
waning and it was easy to see that he would, 
in the moment of decision, surrender his judg- 
ment entirely to hers, when he felt towards her 
so that he could say truthfully: 

" When I approach 
Her loveliness, so absolute she seems, 
And in herself complete, so well to know 
Her own, that what she wills to do or say- 
Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best." 

With such sentiments governing him, there 
could be no doubt of the result; he surrendered. 
The sinless Adam became a sinner and thence- 
forth took his revenge, though in this matter 
some of his descendants may have excelled 
him, for nothing bad is reported of him after 
Eve launched him on his career to death and 
put him to work. 



CHAPTER IV. 

MIRACLES CRUELTY. 

The usual compassionate sneer of contempt 
bestowed upon the credulous stupidity which 
believes the miracles narrated in the Bible is, 
as may be expected, one of the characteristics 
of Mr. Ingersoll's writings. He is consistent 
in this matter, though usually consistency is by 
no means one of his favorite peculiarities. He 
appears to entertain a special contempt for the 
miracles of the Old Testament, which he con- 
siders beyond apology, and it is singular that 
he himself should point to the path which leads 
to their acceptance. 



70 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

"The facts of nature," he declares, "are the 
real and eternal miracles." It is proper here 
to inquire what the term miracles implies. 
They are, in lay language, supernatural events 
performed by a power beyond the direct agency 
of natural law. Not being the effects of 
demonstrable laws of nature, Mr. Ingersoll 
considers that it is absurd credulity to believe 
in their reality, yet he knows very well that, 
?ls the most exhaustive scientific argument ex- 
hibiting the causes of nature's effects carries the 
investigator back to a great effective but inex- 
plicable, undemonstrable Cause which is not 
inherent in nature, and, therefore, superxvaXxxxiX 
or miraculous, the effects of this Cause must 
also be miraculous. For this reason alone Mr. 
Inofersoll is correct in stating that the " facts of 
nature are the eternal miracles." The scientist 
who knows much about nature, and has ex- 
plained all he could analyze with his eyes, as- 
sisted by lenses and with his touch, by admit- 
ting the existence of a Force or Cause not re- 
siding in the atomical parts of which the cosmos 
is composed, pronounces this Cause superna- 
tural or miraculous. The effects of the miracu- 
lous cause must be likewise miraculous, and 
from this point of view all effects of nature 
are miracles. While some of the most promi- 
nent of these miraculous effects or laws of 
nature appear to human observation abso- 
lutely immutable, a mutability both grand 
and lovely is one of nature's charms. When 
she deviates from her usual course she per- 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 71 

forms a miracle. Since Mr. Ino-ersoll ad- 
mits that the facts of nature themselves are 
the eternal miracles, her deviations from these 
facts are equally produced by a miraculous 
power not inherent in nature. The conspicu- 
ous miracles of the Old Testament, the favorite 
targets for the arrows of skeptical sneers, are 
such deviations from the usual course of na- 
ture, miraculous because produced by the 
same supernatural Cause which produced 
the " eternal fact." When the snowflakes cover 
blooming roses, which can be seen once in a 
long lifetime, nature deviates from her usual 
routine ; she performs a miracle. Does she not 
perform a miracle at great irregular intervals 
when the startled earth receives a meteoric 
shower? The supernatural and therefore 
miraculous power which holds myriads of con- 
stellations to their appointed course, and finds 
room for new comets without causing disaster, 
cannot find it a difficult task to stay for some 
hours the waters of so small a stream as the 
Jordan, or impart the slight shock to the earth 
which was necessary to overthrow the walls of 
Jericho ; nor was it beyond its ability to retard 
the movement of the earth to lengthen the day 
of Joshua's battle, or so to dispose of the 
vast luminous forces at its command as to pro- 
long the light of that day. Cannot an engineer 
retard the velocity of his engine without danger 
to the train ? Does not the master mind, the 
Cause which produced the immense cosmogenic 
mechanism, possess abilities infinitely greater? 



72 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

The most plausible argument against the 
miracles of the Old 'Testament which skeptics 
can advance is their cessation. They ask if 
they were really performed once, why are they 
not performed now ? It would be correct 
enough to reply chat the necessity for them has 
ceased, but the best answer to the question is 
the one which the rich man received when he 
asked that Lazarus might be sent out of Abra- 
ham's bosom down to the earth to warn his 
brethren against the fate before them, as they 
would certainly believe if they heard a man 
who returned from the dead: 

"If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will 
they be persuaded though one rise from the dead." 

He who said this illustrated this opinion. 
He rose from death and appeared, ate and 
conversed with his disciples, and these twelve 
men, and eye-witnesses, not to mention the 
testimony of women, testified that they saw him 
after his death and burial, spoke to him and sat 
at meals with him. They believed so thor- 
oughly that they made the resurrection one of 
the cardinal doctrines of the religion they 
propagated with undaunted zeal, and for which 
they died, a religion which no skepticism, no 
atheism, no persecutions have been able to 
drive out of the world. If a man were to rise 
from death even now, and were to risk telling 
these unbelievers of another world and of their 
relations towards it, they would pronounce him 
insane and put him in the lunatic asylum ; and 
if such a risen individual refrained from nar- 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 73 

rating his experience and from expressing- 
opinions, simply identifying himself as a man 
who had been dead and was alive again, they 
would build another morgue and enforce its 
use. The sensation would be quite ephemeral. 

The first miracle after the creation which pre- 
sents itself to the reader of the Bible is the 
audible voice of God. Attention cannot be 
directed too often to the fact that the word of 
God from the beginning was the civilizing force, 
civilization's purifier and preserver. Without 
it the human species would have been, not 
brutes, for that it cannot be, but savages and 
cannibals. This word has always been in the 
world. It was audible during" the dawn of his- 
tory. It was then the only way to impart it to 
man. Civilization is gradual, and the propaga- 
tion of the word of God was adapted to the 
condition of the species in its various stages. 
It is probable that the voice of God never was 
audible to any human beings, except those 
whose minds were in "correspondence" with 
him, to express the relation in an excellent, 
modern, scientific term. It is stated, on one 
occasion, when the parties interested heard the 
voice of God distinctly, the casual auditors and 
spectators said it thundered. 

When the species multiplied, after the ex- 
pulsion from Eden, the instruction in the di- 
vine word or law was delegated to the pious 
men descending from Adam, called patriarchs, 
through their sire. There is little said in the 
narrative upon the subject of God's voice, un- 



74 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

til Noah was commissioned to build the ark. 
Enoch, it seems, was a more than usually pious 
man. It is said of him that after the birth of 
his son, Methuselah, he "walked with God" 
three hundred years and had sons and daugh- 
ters. Of other men, it is said, they lived such 
a number of years and died. Enoch is the 
one of whom it is said he walked with God. 
The inference is that he was an unusually de- 
vout man; his life and conversation showed 
that he lived in communion with God, so that 
his nature became spiritualized, and he was not 
confined to earth the usual number of years. 
He did not die like other men whose remains 
were buried. 

" And Enoch walked with God : and he was not ; for God 
took him." 

This fact made a great impression, and was 
jotted down with the genealogy with which the 
few important events clustering around it were 
preserved; yet in this statement no mention is 
made of the audible voice of God. Enoch's 
piety was cultivated without miraculous aid. 
When the period of time is considered over 
which the Scripture narratives extend, it appears 
that Jehovah's voice was but rarely heard; yet 
it was necessary during the dark ages of the 
history of the chosen people that God should 
manifest himself in this manner to those men 
who were appointed to recall his people from 
the errors of their ways. Surrounded by idol- 
atry and vice, as they were, it was a very dif- 
ficult task to preserve the faith in one God, and 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 75 

impress a gainsaying crowd with the truth and 
power of the divine word. It came audibly to 
the prophets as it had come to Moses, but 
during the early ci-diluvian period angels were 
often employed to carry divine messages. When 
several civilizations, the Greek and the Roman 
among the last and best, had reached their 
zenith and decline, the Aryan mind was pre- 
pared for the reception of the divine w r ord of 
truth, and it became* incarnate to establish the 
purified and spiritualized religion, which will 
not pass away. Teachers multiplied, and after 
the apostolic era miracles ceased; copies of the 
written word became more numerous, and since 
the invention of the printing press the word of 
God has become accessible to all who desire it. 

Averse to argument, and conscious of his in- 
ability to attack successfully the word of God 
as expressed in the ten commandments, Mr. 
Ingersoll, ever on the alert for vulnerable points 
in the character of Jehovah, thinks he has dis- 
covered one when he exclaims with great 
satisfaction on referring to the Canaanites, 
"Why did not Jehovah, the Father of all, give 
them the ten commandments ? " 

Will he permit us to inform him that they 
were not God's people? They were not the 
species he created. He created Adam and the 
Adamites. The Canaanites and other varieties 
were results of opposition to liis will. Hu- 
manly speaking, he was not responsible for 
them. They were the successors of Satan in 
this intellectual kingdom, which is the battle- 



76 REVIEW OF INGERSOLl/s 

ground between good and evil. Nevertheless 
Jehovah did give them the ten commandments 
as fully as they were given to the Hebrew 
generations which were not present at their first 
promulgation on Mount Sinai. A 

" mixed multitude n 

had come with them from Egypt. It was they 
who 

" fell to lusting" 

and infected the Israelites, causing a great deal 
of trouble, and in addition to this multitude, the 
Hittites, the Jebusites, Canaanites, etc., were all 
around them during their wanderings. These 
demon worshipping tribes were very watchful 
of the movements of their enemies. They 
were doubtless also as fond of excitement and 
of novelty as similar tribes are fond of sight- 
seeing now, even at the risk of some personal 
safety. These tribes were not implicated and 
in no danger when Israel was being judged 
and instructed by the mighty lawgiver. To 
witness the scene was a good chance for spies 
as well as for curiosity-seekers, and many a 
curly black head peeped from some ambush, 
many a dark limb curled around the upper 
branches of palm trees, and eagerly watching 
eyes rolled in their orbits in strained ex- 
pectancy when the terrified Hebrews col- 
lected around the smoking mountain covered 
with a dark cloud ; when Moses emerged 
from the cloud amidst flashing lightnings and 
earth-shaking thunderbolts ; when the terrified 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 77 

crowd bowed low in great awe and the air 

vibrated with the words : 

"1 am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other 
gods before me," 

ears which were not Hebrew listened and many 
understood. 

The Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the 
Canaanites, and the Hivites were far closer to 
the sounds of that voice than Jesse and his 
sons or any of the illustrious Shemitic Aryans 
of later periods, but they would not heed the 
word of God ; they preferred their own ways 
and vile practices. The captives of those pro- 
tracted wars for the promised land received the 
same religious instructions by word and ex- 
ample as the Israelites among whom they lived. 
The " hewers of wood and drawers of water " 
were not deprived of the knowledge of the 
ten commandments. Many returned to their 
own people of these as well as of the " mixed 
multitude,'' but they made no impression for 
the better among them. The case was very dif- 
ferent with the persecuted Christians, exiles, 
slaves and martyrs. They were Aryan prop- 
agators of the word of God, which they car- 
ried to Aryan tribes, among whom it spread 
with miraculous rapidity in the face of the most 
cruel and terrific persecutions. 

Mr. Ingersoll condemns the cruelty of the 
Mosaic law on account of the frequency of 
capital punishment, and humanity appears to 
be on his side, but it would be well for him and 
others to remember that Moses had not had 



78 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

time to build prisons and penitentiaries with 
modern improvements and give improved 
regulations. He could not even determine 
upon a site for such edifices, inasmuch as the 
twelve tribes were living in camps, moving 
from place to place and fighting their way to a 
country of their own. When they left the 
Egyptian bondage they had no fatherland. It 
may be supposed that Moses could have in- 
troduced slave-galleys, but they could not have 
sailed on the sands of the desert. These and 
others may be considered extenuating circum- 
stances, which should modify the rash censures 
of the conduct of the ancient legislator. 

Moses had a hard time of it in many ways, 
and is entitled to sympathy. He was an edu- 
cated man. His fine natural faculties were 
cultivated, and when he grew to adolescence he 
could not but perceive the organic superiority 
of his countrymen and himself over the Egyp- 
tians, but it required an incident narrated by 
himself to reveal to him the depth of depravity 
to which his countrymen had been reduced by 
years of abject servitude to their oppressors. 
Escaping the decree of death at the hands of 
executioners sent for all male children of the 
Hebrews, by a successful stratagem of a mother 
whose heart was bleeding with agony at the 
impending cruel death of her child, he had 
doubtless heard the story of his rescue. He 
did not selfishly rejoice over it, but felt a strong 
sympathy for the persecuted wretches who were 
his kindred and of his own race. When he 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 79 

was a well-developed young man he went out 
among 

" his brethren, and looked on their burdens : and he 
spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his 
brethren. And he looked this way and that way, 
and when he saw that there was no man, he slew 
the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand. And 
when he went out the second day, behold, two men 
of the Hebrews strove together, and he said to him 
that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy 
fellow? And he said, Who made thee a prince 
and a judge over me? intendest thou to kill me as 
thou killedst the Egyptian? And Moses feared," 

and fled, well knowing what would be the re- 
venge of the Egyptians. He went to Midian, 
where he sat down by a well to rest. When 
the seven daughters of the priest came to water 
their father's flocks, and the shepherds drove 
them away, Moses became their champion, won 
a minority victory, and secured the girls their 
rights as first-comers. This delighted their 
father so much that he sent them back to brine 
Moses to " eat bread," which they did. Moses 
was so well pleased with his new friend, who 
was evidently a great man among the Midians, 
that he remained and received from the latter 
one of his seven daughters to wife. It is 
doubtful that this was a love-match ; but Moses 
accepted the gift, which he probably could not 
have declined without offending the donor, with 
whom he was content to dwell. While there, 
a number of years later, he was called by the 
great 

"I am who I am," 



80 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL's 

this being the answer he received when he 
asked who it was who sent him to carry his 
brethren and kinsmen out of Egypt to a land 
flowing with milk and honey, which they should 
have for a possession of their own, being 
strangers in the land of Egypt, and fearfully 
treated by their masters. The appeal to Moses' 
sympathy for his countrymen was strong, but 
his fear of undertaking the charge after his ex- 
perience was greater. He wanted to be thor- 
oughly convinced that he was not being led 
into trouble by an impostor, and two miracles 
were necessary to convince him that the voice 
was really the voice of God. Even when once 
convinced of this, he was extremely reluctant 
to undertake the charge, and pleaded every 
excuse he could think of, but the command was 
positive. The only concession his pleadings 
secured was that his brother Aaron should be 
given him as an assistant, who should speak 
for him, as Moses insisted that he was " slow 
of speech " and not eloquent. 

He found his task quite as serious as he an- 
ticipated. When matters did not go quite 
smoothly his countrymen, 600,000 men on foot, 
upbraided him and rebelled against him again 
and again. Slavery had made cowards of 
them ; their better faculties had been crushed 
so long that the cravings of their instincts were 
about the only sensations which governed 
them, and it took over forty years to raise them 
to some degree of civilization. Moses became 
discouraged very often by the great difficulties 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 81 

attending the enterprise. In some of these mo- 
ments of depression harassing doubts entered 
his mind ; he complained, wanted to be released 
from his task, and feared he might be de- 
ceived. " Wherefore hast thou afflicted thy ser- 
vant ?" he pleaded; "wherefore have I not 
found favor in thy sight that thou layest the 
burden of this people upon me? Have I con- 
ceived all this people ? have I begotten them, 
that thou shouldest say unto me, Carry them in 
thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth the 
sucking child, unto the land which thou swear- 
est unto their fathers." Not securing- his re- 
lease, he persisted in his entreaties: "I am not 
able to bear all this people alone, because it is too 
heavy for me. And if thou deal thus with me kill 
me, I pray thee, out of hand ; if I have found favor 
in thy sight, let me not see my wretchedness." 
With this great reluctance to continue the 
enormously difficult task to which he was called 
by the relentless, invisible voice, Moses would 
undoubtedly have given it up if he had not been 
most positively convinced that it was the voice 
of God. He was as cautious as possible. In 
his moments of despondency he thought it pos- 
sible, from his familiarity with the arts and tricks 
of the magicians of Egypt and the East, that 
some ventriloquist more powerful than he had 
yet known was urging him on to his ruin. In 
this doubt and perplexity he entreated the Lord 
God to show himself to him if the voice were 
really his; but the answer came, "no man 
can see God and live ; " but Moses was put in 
6 



82 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL's 

the cleft of a rock while the Lord passed by in 
such a phenomenon of overwhelming grandeur 
that he was restrained from the sight so his 
life would be spared ; but when it had passed 
he gazed at the departing glory and was con- 
vinced. The unprotected eye would lose its 
sight by gazing at the meridian sun, while the 
glory of his decline delights it without in- 
juring it. Sights of splendor far surpassing 
those of the setting sun Moses beheld, and 
what he saw sufficed to remove all doubt, and 
he believed. 

The fact that this great ancient historian was 
a man not at all credulous, but always demanded 
proof when he received supernatural communi- 
cation, is so strong a voucher for the veracity 
of his narratives that his unprejudiced readers 
cannot resist the evidence nor refuse him their 
confidence, fabulous though his accounts may 
seem to a superficial peruser. 

The fact that the voice of God is no longer 
audible to human beings proves by no means 
that Jehovah did not audibly speak to Adam 
and those of his descendants whom he called 
on account of their peculiar fitness to impart 
his laws and his communications to their fellow- 
beings. All things mundane have a beginning. 
On the new earth, a portion of the intellectual 
sphere, the word of God, which is the light of 
the intellect, was unknown until Adam was. 
accosted by it and his mind opened to receive 
it. Until it became a multiplied written word, 
it was preserved and guarded against perver- 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 83 

sions by the voice of God himself, audible to 
those men who were his agents in accomplish- 
ing this purpose. When the word came in its 
fulness in the person of Jesus Christ, it was 
twice heard by him and by those men who were 
destined to promulgate the Christian religion 
and lay down their lives for it. Expecting a 
kingdom in the human or rather secular sense 
of the word, not sufficiently spiritualized to 
grasp the idea of a spiritual invisible kingdom, 
these men were sustained in their hours of trial 
and despondency by reviewing the past and re- 
calling the positive divine communications to 
themselves. They were present at the baptism ; 
they saw the dove descending, and heard the 
voice from heaven: 

" Thou art my beloved Son ; in thee I am well pleased.' ' 

They were present also during the transfigura- 
tion on Mount Tabor, and heard the voice which 
came out of the cloud saying : 

" This is my beloved Son : hear him. 

With this testimony the audible voice of God 
ceased. In Jesus Christ it was given to the 
world. From this focus it radiates through the 
souls of men, who after five thousand years of 
preparatory, gradual civilization are capable of 
comprehending that there is a life above and 
apart from the material life of sense, the life of 
human thought, so that the idea of a spiritual 
commonwealth of God is quite comprehensible 
to the present era. The miraculous voice once 



84 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

necessary to establish the word is no longer 
needed. 

The dealings of Providence as traced by the 
true believer are equally efficacious as the 
miracles were when they were necessary. • The 
voice still speaks, though not audibly. What is 
true of the voice is equally true of all miracles ; 
they are no longer desirable and would be in- 
judicious under altered circumstances. Pro- 
gress, change, is the watchword in the intel- 
lectual kingdom. The new which is of the right 
quality often supersedes that which was best 
during the past. If the Israelites of to-day in- 
sisted upon measuring their dry-goods with an 
ancient Hebrew cubit their business would not 
be as flourishing- as it is. The Hebrew cubit 
has passed away, because it is unnecessary. 
Israelites recognize the fact and do not think 
that, because their old measurement has become 
useless, measurement is wrong or useless; they 
do not on this account cease to measure. 
Neither does the Christian cease to recognize 
the finger of God in the lives of his people, 
though miracles have passed away. 



CHAPTER V. 

CRUELTY, SLAVERY AND SACRIFICES. 

It would be an interesting item to study the 
Bible with a view to ascertaining the startling 
cases of cruelty with which it is so frequently 
charged by its enemies. A computation of their 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 85 

numbers and of the number of decades, nay, 
centuries, over which they are scattered, would 
diminish very materially the force of the charges. 
The cases of cruelty would probably be fewer 
in number than the number of centuries through 
which they are scattered. Nevertheless, even 
one spot on a fair name should be blotted out 
if possible, and the possibility of success in 
achieving this is very encouraging in the case 
of the Bible. It is not the privilege of the 
present writer, however, to accomplish this vast 
task. This little work must be confined to a 
few instances especially conspicuous in Mr. 
Ingersoll's attacks upon the standard work and 
recognized code of Christianity. 

One of the prominent cases referred to in 
this catalogue of cruelties is. that of Uzzah, the 
man who died instantly because he touched the 
ark to prevent its falling on a rough part of the 
road. The startling instances in the Scripture 
narratives present themselves very suddenly to 
the reader, and the fate of Uzzah imparted to the 
trusting and believing heart of the writer a 
painful shock; it required repeated readings 
and a careful analysis of the attending circum- 
stances to remove the unpleasant impression, 
but in matters of faith, if in nothing else, perse- 
verance succeeds. If Uzzah was a good man 
his death was not a punishment, and the future 
upon which he entered brighter than the career 
he left. 

" No good supreme is life, 
But of all earthly ills the chief is Guilt." 



86 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

If his intention was good, as it appears to 
have been, no condemnation awaited him, but 
if his rash step had been permitted to pass un- 
reproved it would have been attended by dan- 
gerous results. It should be remembered that 
the ark was once captured and carried to the 
hostile camp in great triumph. The Levites, 
many in numbers and valiant men at that time, 
were its appointed custodians. It was the ark, 
conspicuous in their religious services, which 
gave them their superiority of position among 
the twelve tribes. Apart from their feeling in 
the matter, its safety was their interest, and 
it was a wise provision that no one except 
a Levite should be permitted to touch it. 
Traitors were not apt to be among the Levites, 
but they might be found among the other 
tribes, and the " mixed multitude" attending 
the army and camp. Laws which remain unen- 
forced are futile. The law had been issued 
that no one except a Levite should touch the 
ark. To enforce a law is as important as to 
make and promulgate it, and the safety of the 
ark required that the law should be enforced ; 
once dispensed with it would not command any 
respect. Nor was this the only phase of the 
question. Uzzah's rashness savored of pre- 
sumption and indicated a want of confidence in 
the disposition or will of the Levites to protect 
the ark. Perhaps it also implied a hesitation 
to admit the privileges of the Levites, all of 
which possibilities were most emphatically de- 
cided by the fiat of death executed upon the man 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 87 

who violated the law. Extenuating cifcum- 
stances are not allowed their weight in times 
of war, as would be done during a peaceful ad- 
ministration of government. The exigencies 
of war prevailed when Uzzah met his fate, and 
above all it was absolutely necessary to con- 
vince the Israelites themselves as well as their 
enemies that this, their God, was a powerful 
God ; more powerful than their idols to create 
and to destroy, and that his word, which was 
contained in the ark, should be respected; that 
his word was holy and while the ark should not 
be worshipped it should be reverenced because 
it contained the word of God. It was a nice 
transition to prepare minds accustomed to 
worship, not only wood and stone, but abomina- 
tions, to adore an invisible God, by reverencing 
his word which was visibly represented by the 
ark. It facilitated the evolution of abstract 
thoughts from visible objects. The ark was in- 
tangible, though visible to the congregation at 
large ; the Levites were its custodians, and it was 
necessary that this fact should be recognized. 

In searching the Old Testament for a suitable 
passage with which to support his charges of 
cruelty, Mr. Ingersoll shows the successful man, 
but there are those who deem his faculties for 
success ill employed upon this particular occa- 
sion. He was so rejoiced when he found a 
passage which suited him that he tore it in 
great haste from all its connections, thereby giv- 
ing shocking prominence to threats uttered to 
deter a heedless people from the evil ways to 



88 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

which they were tempted. Parents desirous 
of preventing their children from going astray 
would not hesitate to describe the results of an 
evil choice in the most discouraging manner. 
This is what Jehovah did after entreating his 
children to abide by him, and detailing the 
blessings he would shower upon them for doing 
it, as follows : 

"And all these blessings shall come on thee, 
and overtake thee if thou shalt hearken unto 
the voice of the Lord thy God. Blessed shalt 
thou be in the city, blessed shalt thou be in the 
field. Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, 
and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of 
thy cattle and the increase of thy kine, and the 
flock of thy sheep. Blessed shalt be thy basket 
and thy store. Blessed shalt thou be when 
thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when 
thou goest out. The Lord shall cause thine 
enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten 
before thy face: they shall come out against 
thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways. 
The Lord shall command the blessing upon 
thee in thy storehouse, and in all that thou 
settest thine hand unto: and he shall bless thee 
in the land which the Lord God giveth thee. 
The Lord shall establish thee an holy people 
unto himself, as he has sworn unto thee, if 
thou wilt keep the commandments of the Lord 
thy God and walk in his ways. And all the peo- 
ple of the earth shall see that thou art called by 
the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 89 

thee. And the Lord shall make thee plenteous, 
in goods," etc. 

Then again : "The Lord shall open unto thee 
his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain 
unto thy land in season, and to bless all the 
works of thine hand : and thou shalt lend unto 
many nations and thou shalt not borrow. And 
the Lord shall make thee the head and not the 
tail ; and thou shalt be above only and thou 
shalt not be beneath ; if thou only hearken 
unto the commandments of the Lord thy God 
which I command thee this day, to observe and 
to do them : and thou shalt not go aside from 
any of the words which I command thee this day, 
to the right hand or to the left, to go after other 
gods to serve them. ,, 

This is a most impassioned entreaty of a 
loving God to persuade his people to choose 
their own happiness, which in point of fact 
was really only on his side, the side of 
his laws and his promises; for what was the 
fate and the condition of the demon-wor- 
shipping nations ? Their lives were lives 
of misery for the most part, and in nothing 
they were as well off as the Israelites as long 
as the latter remained faithful to their God who 
desired their happiness. After these entreaties 
and promises comes the enumeration of the 
curses which should have deterred any sensible 
people by the fear they should have inspired, 
for "the fear of the Lord is the beoqnninor f 
wisdom," but neither entreaties nor fear prevailed. 

Mr. Ingersoll's selection of these curses 



90 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

wrested from their connection met with a 
cogent rebuke from an intelligent Rabbi, who is 
evidently a more diligent student of the Old 
Testament, and informs the former that those 
fearful passages were not curses but predictions 
of the consequences of an evil choice. Un- 
fortunately these predictions were but too fully 
realized by the parties concerned. 

War is always cruel, yet it cannot be denied 
that civilization has exercised a modifying effect 
upon this cruel expedient for settling differ- 
ences. The reader cannot but shudder with 
horror over the accounts of those terrible wars 
of extermination waged under the leadership 
of Moses, in whose legal enactments as well as 
martial measures revolting cruelty and tender 
benevolence are singularly blended ; but Moses 
cannot be judged impartially unless his mis- 
sion is properly understood. 

About the time when he was appointed to 
rescue his countrymen and conquer a territory 
for them w T here they might settle and establish 
a government of their own, history records 
the migrations of some of the Hellenic tribes, 
also Aryans, who, like the Hebrews, sought a 
country for themselves and settled in Greece, 
driving out the original inhabitants. No doubt 
the causes which induced this migration of the 
descendants of Japheth were similar to those 
which impelled the escape of the Hebrews 
from Egypt, and had for their object the pres- 
ervation of the original species and their estab- 
lishment as nations upon the earth ; having been 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 91 

slaves fearfully oppressed by Turanian tribes, 
which were largely in the majority. In Egypt 
the extermination of Adamites and the improve- 
ment of the Egyptian type of humanity were 
determined by the latter. For this purpose the 
death of all Hebrew male children was en- 
forced with relentless cruelty. This course, de- 
structive to the Hebrew element, had been 
pursued for many years when Moses received 
his commission, and the exodus was the third 
instance of divine interposition for the preser- 
vation of the original race which God created 
and which the evil forces antagonizing his pur- 
poses sought to destroy. The deluge was the 
first of these divine interpositions for the 
preservation of his species. Opposition to in- 
termarriage between the Adamites and the 
varieties largely outnumbering the former was 
evidently the divine command to the Adamites 
and approved by the good sense of the best 
representatives of the latter. No other re- 
straint appears to have been laid upon their 
intercourse, though the patriarchal govern- 
ment in order to enforce this prohibition must 
have found it desirable to maintain some regu- 
lations in their intercourse calculated to facili- 
tate the maintenance of this law of exclusive 
marriages of Adamites within their own species. 
When the sons of God (pure Adamites) 
began to marry the " daughters of men," attrac- 
tive women of other types approaching the 
Adamites and comparatively " fair," the divine 
fiat interposed. 



92 REVIEW OF INGERSOLl/S 

" My spirit shall not always strive with man, yet 
his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." 
What an illustration of God's long-suffering 
patience with his rebellious creatures ! He had 
striven with them, entreated, but this he could 
not always continue ; destruction would attend 
an excess of forbearance ; yet once more he 
resolves to exercise patience and give time for 
repentance and a change of conduct, but in 
vain. After this respite of a» hundred and 
twenty years 

" God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before 
me, for the earth is filled with violence through 
them ; and behold I will destroy them with the 
earth/ ' 

It was a terrible catastrophe, but unavoidable 
in the preservation of the original species. It 
was the farmer destroying the weeds to save 
his corn. After the flood the white species was 
re-established by eight persons and longevity 
diminished. The Turanians, however, reap- 
peared through the grandson of Noah, Canaan. 

Of the three sons of Noah, Ham was the only 
one who had improper tendencies, but his terri- 
ble experience during the deluge inspired him 
sufficiently with fear of the divine retribution to 
deter him from crime. His son Canaan, not 
partaking of this wholesome fear, became the 
progenitor of the varieties, and his vicious pro- 
pensities were doubtless known to his grand- 
father when the latter pronounced the following 
remarkable benediction, prediction and male- 
diction. " 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 93 

" Cursed be Canaan ; a servant of servants shall he be to 
his brethren. And he said : Blessed be the Lord 
God of Shem ; and Canaan shall be his servant. God 
shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents 
of Shem and Canaan shall be his servant." 

The deluge, as has been shown, was the first 
great event in the history of the preservation 
and permanent establishment of the Adamite 
species upon this earth. The second was the 
confounding of speech at the Tower of Babel. 
The population had increased so rapidly that 
the people were obliged to move on for larger 
areas of cultivable land and pasture for their 
flocks. They journeyed westward and found 
the plain of Shinar, with which they were well 
pleased. There "the children of men'' Tu- 
ranians who had already grown numerous and 
somewhat improved in type, said: 

" Go to, let us build us a city and a tower whose top may 
reach into heaven ; and let us make us a name lest 
we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole 
earth.' ' 

It was the plan of the "children of men," not 
of the " sons of God " or Adamites. The for- 
mer, realizing the superiority of the latter and 
regretting their desire of keeping separate from 
the Turanians, wanted to make themselves a 
name ; they wanted to do something to excite 
the admiration of the Adamites and give them 
influence with them and power over them. 
They did not wish to be scattered, fearing that 
the Adamites might separate themselves from 
them ; they wanted to be identified with them 
and control them if they could. It was to pre- 



94 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

vent their dispersion and to make themselves 
" a name " that they conceived the enterprise. It 
was a case analogous with that of Eve. Satan 
roused a desire in her to be equal with *God ; 
the " children of men " wanted to reach into 
heaven ; in both cases the result was disastrous 
and directly the opposite of their aims. Be- 
fore the structure of the " children of men " had 
reached a sufficient height for nature to ad- 
minister a rebuke to these impudent mortals by 
freezing their fingers, God, to whom are open 
the motives of human actions, took notice of the 
rising tower and growing city and said : 

" Behold the people is one and they have all one language ; and 
this they begin to do ; and now nothing will be re- 
strained from them which they have imagined to do." 

Probably many of the Adamites shared in 
the enterprise, and were among the most 
energetic builders; a common object was 
cementing closer relations between them, and 
threatened to obliterate the race-principle. 
Therefore, not in wrath but in kindness, the 
wisest and most benevolent of rulers said : 

" Go to, let us go down, and there confound 
their language, that they may not understand 
one another's speech. So the Lord scattered 
them abroad from thence upon the face of the 
earth: and they left' off to build the city." 

In this division by language and scattering 
of the builders those Adamites who were 
already most closely identified with the " chil- 
dren of men " went with the latter and became 
the early white settlers who were deists of 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 95 

which history speaks, but unmindful of the race- 
principle, or too much in the minority to main- 
tain it, they became absorbed by the Turanians 
and disappeared. With them disappeared the 
belief in one God, though this belief never died 
out entirely among- the descendants of Japh- 
eth. Amonof the Hellenic tribes who migrated 
later when the Israelites journeyed, the great 
men always stood aloof from the polytheism of 
the people. The same applies to the Romans. 
It may have been the opinion, not yet extinct, 
that it is easier to govern an unenlightened 
people than an intelligent one, which prevailed 
upon the rulersand leading men of these superior 
races to encourage a polytheism which they 
improved by their artistic and poetical genius, 
for it was very superior to the idolatries prac- 
tised amono- other nations, and carried to them 
by these and by the slaves in their midst. The 
development of the Adamite mind can be re- 
tarded, but it can not be annihilated. When 
Greece and Rome reached the zenith of their 
literary and intellectual development the people 
lost their confidence in their gods ; with their 
religion their virtues waned ; patriotism van- 
ished, and the commonwealth fell from its glori- 
ous position ; but thenceforth the belief in one 
God, which had among those Aryans been the 
privilege of the few, became the privilege chiefly 
of the classes which had been deprived of it. 

The migration under the leadership of 
Moses, which occurred about the same time 
with that of the Hellenic tribes, was the third 



96 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

period of rescue for the original species from 
destruction or absorption. During that period 
laws were enforced to preserve the purity of 
type. The Levites were not permitted to 
marry out of their tribe. In the priesthood, 
which was confined to the family of Aaron, the 
regulations concerning marriage were still 
more limited. The priesthood was hereditary 
in the family of Aaron. Moses had married a 
woman of impure descent, and his sons, while 
their names are mentioned, disappeared after 
this notice from the narrative, and probably re- 
turned with their mother to their own people. 
This hereditary priesthood, however, was not 
designed to establish the principles of aris- 
tocracy or birth privileges subsequently built 
upon its model. Not patrician or plebeian 
birth, not noble or vulgar descent was its ob- 
ject. It was a question of pure human blood 
and organization, and of mixed human and ani- 
mal blood. For this purpose the genealogy 
was carefully kept and miraculously preserved 
to the birth of Christ. For this purest spirit, 
which was of the essence of God himself, a pure 
organization from Adam and Eve, God's own 
creation, was to be preserved. The worldly 
hopes of a worldly people looked for the son 
of David, who would restore his father's king- 
dom. This hope was their light by which they 
chose the better path. They were not yet ca- 
pable to conceive the purely spiritual idea of a 
spiritual kingdom ; but this reputed son of 
David was really not Joseph's son, but the son 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 97 

of Mary alone. The genealogies of women 
have not been preserved ; but it is stated that 
she was a cousin of Elisabeth, the wife of a 
priest in the line of Aaron, and herself a daugh- 
ter of Aaron. This is sufficient testimony to 
Mary's pure descent from Adam and Eve. It 
was wisdom to give this fact no greater prom- 
inence than it received. Had it been made 
more prominent it would only have added 
stimulus to mariolatry. Soon after the birth of 
Christ his own pure genealogy was lost as well 
as all the Genealogies, top-ether with the abro- 
gation of the hereditary priesthood. The de- 
struction of Jerusalem, the effectual scattering 
of the Israelites among the Gentiles, and still 
later the destruction of the libraries at Alexan- 
dria, rendered it utterly impossible for any 
member of this dispersed nation to discover his 
family genealogy. The sons of Aaron, the 
once priests, can no more be identified than the 
Levites can be distinguished from the Reuben- 
ites. Has not the prediction — 

" O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killedst the prophets 
and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how 
often would I have gathered thy children together 
even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her 
wings, and ye would not. Behold, your home 
is left unto you desolate/ ' 

been fulfilled, and does it not seem idle to grasp 
a shadow, futile to cling to a mummy? 

During the exodus, which was the third con- 
spicuous enterprise inaugurated for the preser- 
vation of the original species, again largely out- 
7 



98 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL's 

numbered by the Turanian varieties, a great 
deal occurred which appears to justify Mr. In- 
gersoll's charges of cruelty, and has filled tem- 
porarily with dismay the minds of many who 
believed and desired confirmation of their trust 
in the Bible ; but to the intrepid and persever- 
ing student light ever dispels darkness. Moses 
himself suffered keenly with momentary de- 
pression and most natural discouragement, as 
has been shown. Wherever admissible benev- 
olence characterizes his legislation, and no one 
can doubt that when it became his duty to com- 
mand a course of action destructive of human 
life, such as the killing of captives, his feelings 
recoiled from it, but he obeyed a stern sense of 
duty. On such occasions he was only the 
laborer sent into the corn-field to cut down the 
weeds until the corn should have attained that 
condition in which it could no longer be injured. 
The crisis of growth well over, and the corn 
above injury, the weeds were permitted to 
grow. No avoidable cruelty was practised or 
commanded by that faithful laborer. He was 
seeking a country for a people who had none, 
it should be remembered, and who were fleeing 
from their oppressors, escaping a cruel and 
protracted bondage never exceeded in the 
known history of the world. 

When the sea-tossed, exhausted pilgrim 
fathers cast their anchor at Plymouth rock, and 
found that the Indians were unwilling that they 
should share their hunting-grounds, does Mr. 
Ingersoll think they should have fled from the 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 99 

bleak wintery shore and returned to persecution, 
leaving the lords of the soil in undisturbed 
possession of their heritage ? If fleeing from 
Massachusetts they had discovered Australia, 
would not the same question of rightful or 
wrongful possession have presented itself? 
While it is true that the Indians were not 
always properly treated, yet Wyoming and 
other scenes show that extermination of one 
or the other rare was inevitable, and the mis- 
sionary is still in need of protection by the 
soldier. 

Religious toleration, Mr. Ingersoll finds, is not 
recognized by the Mosaic code, and is not 
perfected by the Bible to the "fine point" to 
which his enlightened views have perfected it, 
and again he constitutes himself the champion 
of the woman. 

In reference to religious toleration, the 
bearings of the enactments of the constitution 
of the United States have never been fully 
settled, but it is doubtful that its framers intended 
their scope should assure the right, for in- 
stance, to Turks to build mosques in this 
country and introduce the Mohammedan re- 
ligion, or that Chinese temples should be re- 
produced in this country, and their idol worship 
fostered by the laws of the republic, though 
Mr. Ingersoll seems partial to Mohammedanism, 
Buddhism, etc., perhaps in the interest of civil- 
ization, for he places them on a level with 
Christianity, and should like to persuade the 
world that they are equally desirable. To 



100 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

parties not prejudiced against Christianity these 
isms are very objectionable, yet they are 
slightly in advance of the paganisms practised 
by the people surrounding the Israelites in 
Moses* day. Religious toleration practised 
with a view to these so-called religions, with 
which the most immoral and cruel practices 
were connected, would have absolutely anni- 
hilated all the efforts which had been made to 
raise the Israelites above the* level of those 
savages and cannibals who practised them. 
That the woman should be stoned who per- 
sisted in enticing her husband to these abomi- 
nations fills Mr. Ingersoll's soul with great wrath. 
From a judicial point of view death was in 
Moses' day, as has already been remarked, a 
choice of evils. There were no prisons in 
which to confine criminals in order to prevent 
their doing mischief. But when our gallant 
champion of the frailer sex complains that the 
husband was not to argue with his wife, he 
simply makes a misstatement. The case of the 
woman and other members of the family is 
exactly like that of a city which has been 
accused of permitting these practices within its 
corporation. In both cases extreme caution, 
the most careful investigations, are enjoined. 
In the case of the wife it was only if she per- 
sisted to entice him that he should expose her 
idolatry, and be the first to cast a stone at her. 
The wife's choice of preference for the religion 
of the enemies of her people was in itself an 
act of treason. Treason in this enlightened 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 101 

age is, under martial law, punished with death. 
Moreover, she wanted to incite her husband to 
treason, and the religious exercises of those 
demon-worshipping- nations were attended with 
acts of cruelty and obscene rites which involved 
violations of the legal enactments by which 
Moses endeavored to civilize the Israelites. 
But it is simply the assertion of an inimical 
disposition, which propagates the idea that the 
husband was not free to argue with his wife. 
His opportunities for argument are not limited, 
and he was only permitted to expose her if she 
persisted in enticing him. 

The enactment concerning a city is guarded 
as carefully and is analogous to that of the 
wife. Unless abundant proof 'had teen ad- 
duced after most careful inquiry no action 
should be taken against the city of which it had 
been reported that within its corporation the 
idolatries of the enemies of the Hebrews were 
tolerated and encouraged. If found guilty it 
should be destroyed. It was dalliance with the 
enemy in times of war, apart from the religious 
phase of the question. 

Mr. Ingersoll is very zealous of the rights, 
the religious liberties of wives fifteen hundred 
years ago, and of their protection, but he is too 
partial to Mohammedanism to take notice of 
the helpless sex in his own era, for he carefully 
avoids reference to Turkish husbands, and may 
be for this reason suspected of approving of 
the superior rights of the latter over their female 
slaves in the marital relation and out of it. 



102 REVIEW OF INGERSOLl/s 

Unless he approves, he may find it chivalrous 
to reprove Mohammedan husbands for exercis- 
ing the privilege which enables them to send 
the silken cord to the wife of whom their fickle 
tastes are weary that she may end her own life 
with it, knowing that if she refuses to comply 
she will be tied in a bag and drowned in the 
Bosphorus. If she has delicacy of taste she 
will save this trouble to the executioners await- 
ing her decision. 

Mr. Ingersoll is mistaken in believing that 
God ordained slavery. It appeared just as the 
Turanian races did, in violation of his com- 
mandments, and doubtless originated about the 
same time, which accounts for the fact that no 
studies of history have been successful in dis- 
covering the beginning or origin of slavery. 
Adam had been given dominion over the 
animals, and when the lower varieties came 
into existence, many of them proving ferocious, 
Adam and his sons probably employed similar 
expedients, as they did with animals which they 
wished to domesticate and render useful to 
themselves. Only such as could be domes- 
ticated lived among the Adamites, but when the 
varieties improved in type, and with improve- 
ment in type came improvement in intelligence, 
they became a more independent element in 
the new human commonwealth. Nothing is men- 
tioned in regard to Adam's character after the 
expulsion from Eden, but it is not impossible 
that in the rebound from his extreme devotion 
to Eve he became somewhat despotic, and 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 103 

his descendants may have gone farther than 
their sire in this direction, for the head of a 
family seems to have been, not only an autocrat, 
but a slave-owner in his own family. As late 
as the era of Moses men sold their daughters 
and their sons. In his legislation the former 
aimed to modify this arrogated right of the 
father, which he probably could not at once 
abolish with impunity. The right of the stronger, 
which produced slavery and all other aggres- 
sions, prevailed at that early period, but the 
young and vigorous were as prone to assert it 
as the heads of families or ao-ed men. There- 
fore the same legislator who prescribed rules 
which should govern fathers who were selling 
their daughters also ordained that the man 
who " smiteth his father or his mother shall be 
surely put to death." It is by no means safe to 
judge laws promulgated during the uncivilized 
state of society which existed 2000 or 1500 
years b. c, by the legal standards prevailing 
after nearly two thousand years of Christian 
civilization. 

The first appearance of slavery in authentic 
history seems to date to the era of Abraham. 
His wife, Sarah, had " maid-servants," which 
was probably the original term for female slaves, 
for they seem to have been her property, to be 
disposed of at her discretion. These were 
probably all Turanians, for Hagar was an 
Egyptian, but two generations later Rebecca 
and Leah had white "handmaids." 

God did not ordain slavery, but through his- 



104 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL'S 

agents, appointed and instructed for this pur- 
pose, he regulated the institution established by 
men asserting the tendencies of the stronger; 
by these regulations improving the condition of 
the subordinated classes. Mr. Ingersoll is of 
the opinion that civilization was gradual, not 
sudden, and it is pleasant to direct his attention 
to the conspicuous circumstance that the Bible 
supports this opinion, gradually improving the 
conditions of society ; it is equally pleasant to 
remind him of passages or point out to him 
passages which demonstrate that Jehovah did 
not approve of selling human beings, and still 
less did he establish a practice of which he ex- 
pressed an emphatic disapproval : 

" He that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found 
in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.' ' 

The divine legislator is quite consistent, and 
his ordinance against stealing applied to all 
kinds of properties. The outlines are per- 
manent in the comprehensive legislation of the 
Bible, though in the course of a progressive 
civilization extending over four thousand years 
and more, modifications in the department of 
detail became necessary. Ingersollism will 
search in vain for proofs that Jehovah insti- 
tuted slavery or approved of making merchan- 
dise of human beings. Having doubtless come 
into existence with the varieties, the abrogation 
of the institution could, as they were chiefly 
prisoners of war, not safely be brought about 
by sudden measures, but was gradually effected 
with the advance of civilization. No Aryans, 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 105 

except perhaps among the Mohammedans or 

exceptionally in the interior of Asia, have been 

denominated slaves since the downfall of the 

Roman Empire. Serf, however, became a term 

substituted for slave both in term and condition, 

but both the term and the condition have 

yielded and must further yield to advancing 

civilization. Can any one accuse Jehovah of 

approving the traffic in human beings who has 

read the following verse : 

"If a man be found stealing any of his biethren of the 
children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, 
or selleth him, then that thief shall die ; and thou 
shalt put evil away from among you. M 

One of the most startling charges which Mr. 
Ingersoll prefers against Jehovah is expressed 
in the words : 

" Jehovah was a God of blood," in connection 
with which he speaks of 

"The brutality of Jehovah" and declares that 

"Nothing- can be more monstrous than the 
conception of a God who demands sacrifice." 

But it will be best, before touching these 

declarations, to assure him that the Bible agrees 

..... ^ 

with him in believing that 

" No man can be justly punished for the crime, or justly 
rewarded for the virtues of another." 

Christianity claims this for the incarnate Word 
of God, the Son of God, not for any mere 
human being; as he will perceive by taking 
notice of the following passage, to which others 
might be added from the grand Old Testament: 

* The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, 



108 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL's 

neither shall the children be put to death for the 
fathers ; every man shall be put to death for his 
own sin. ,, 

Apart from his general charge ot cruelty 
against the Bible, on account of which he as- 
sures his readers " millions of men reject it," 
Mr. Ingersoll illustrates the brutality of Jehovah 
principally by his treatment of Eve, and by the 
Mosaic enactment in regard to the wife enticing 
the husband to idolatry and treason. Both 
these cases have been considered, and we will 
refrain from reviewing the charge in its gen- 
eral bearing; but so much has been said about 
the cruelty of demanding sacrifice, that we 
must direct the attention of our opponent to 
the facts referring to sacrifice. 

Abraham sacrificing Isaac, and Jephthah sacri- 
ficing his daughter, stand out as the prominent 
cases rousing his indignation. He is fully aware 
that Isaac was not sacrificed, but this does not 
mitigate his displeasure with Jehovah, whom he 
blames for demanding this sacrifice of Abra- 
ham, and he assures his readers that he would 
not have complied, of which to convince the 
latter he will not find a difficult matter. See- 
ing that Isaac was not sacrificed, he criticises 
the transaction as insincere, because he is inca- 
pable of appreciating the character of Abra- 
ham's faith. 

Isaac was God's gift to Abraham when the 
latter had no longer any hope of having chil- 
dren, and he had been told that his descend- 
ants by Isaac should be as numerous as 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 107 

the sands of the sea. Abraham's experience 
had cultivated in him great devotion to his di- 
vine friend and implicit confidence in him. He 
always did what the Lord commanded him to 
do, and when he was told to offer his only son 
Isaac, it never occurred to him to refuse. It 
must have been a distressing journey to him, 
this journey of three days with such a prospect 
before him, but, judging by the narrative, he 
did not even venture remonstrance and suppli- 
cation on his child's behalf. He must have felt 
that if the Lord who gave him required the 
lad for himself, it must be best for Isaac, for 
the Lord God had always disposed his own 
fate for the best, and he felt that he would soon 
join Isaac in that invisible land whither the 
Lord would have Isaac go, for he was an old 
man. Nothing is said about his belief in im- 
mortality, but there can be no doubt that he 
knew he w r ould pass from the visible to the in- 
visible world when he died. As he had been 
promised numerous descendants by Isaac, and 
had always found the promises true, he may 
have hoped to the last moment that Isaac's life 
would be spared, but he had raised his hand 
to sacrifice the son whom he loved best on 
earth when the command was revoked. As 
the narrative states in the beginning the Lord 
"did tempt Abraham/' it is evident that he only 
wanted to try the faith and obedience of the 
latter, but would never have permitted Isaac's 
death. God had never required human sacri- 
fice, and Abraham knew it, but he was resolved 



108 REVIEW OF INGERSOLl/s 

to do the Lord's will with entire trust in its 
wisdom. This episode, which did not terminate 
in the sacrificial death of Isaac, may therefore be 
regarded as an incident manifesting the divine 
disapproval of human sacrifices, which were 
common among the idolatrous people surround- 
ing Abraham, but were strictly and repeatedly 
forbidden to the Israelites; there is, therefore, 
no occasion for Mr. Ingersoll's railings. 

The case of Jephthah was very different. 
Abraham had received a command to try his 
faith, but was not permitted to kill Isaac, be- 
cause God does not approve of human sacrifice 
and did not accept it. Jephthah received no 
command. His vow was voluntary and noth- 
ing is said of its acceptability. The narrative 
states that his daughter asked for a respite of 
two months, and at the end of the two months 
she returned to her father and he did unto her as 
he had vowed. He had vowed to offer up as a 
burnt sacrifice whatsoever met him coming from 
his home on his return. His daughter met him 
joyfully, to his great distress. Jephthah's 
daughter was the greater character of the two, 
and has furnished a worthy theme for classical 
poetry, but an unprejudiced reader of the epi- 
sode as narrated in Judges cannot perceive 
why Jehovah should be charged with cruelty on 
account of it. If Jephthah burnt his daughter, 
he did it in violation of the divine command as 
shown by the precedent of Isaac and by the 
Mosaic enactment: 

" There shall not be found one among you that maketh his 
son or his daughter pass through the fire," 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 109 

which shows that Jephthah's idea was borrowed 
from the practices of the heathen among whom 
he had lived and with whom it was customary 
to sacrifice their children. 

The first sacrifice mentioned is that of Cain, 
who was a bad and violent man. While his 
heart was far from God, he probably desired 
pre-eminence in the matter of piety, and re- 
sorted to this expedient to manifest it, but his 
sacrifice was rejected by the discerner of motives. 
Abel's was accepted, which roused Cain's jeal- 
ousy and envy, and mortified his pride so 
that he killed his brother. Later, when Moses 
wrote, sacrifices had evidently become a gen- 
eral practice not confined to the Israelites, 
which had become deteriorated and was the 
excuse for much cruelty. Moses regulated and 
improved the practice, confining sacrifices to 
fruits, cereals and animals. Of the latter only 
certain parts, those which were considered the 
best, were burnt on the altar; the bulk of the 
animal belonged to the priests and Levites, 
who derived a part of their support from these 
free-will offerings of the people. To impart 
dignity to this act of worship, the latter were 
obliged to give the choicest pieces of the 
animal for the sacrifice ; they were not per- 
mitted to offer for this purpose the portions 
which would otherwise have been thrown to 
the doers as unfit for use. Such conduct would 
have been a desecration ; therefore the Levites 
were deprived of the choicest piece of their 
portion 



110 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL's 

Revolting as this mode of worship is to our 
civilized tastes, it was an improvement upon 
similar exercises among other people, for the 
era of Moses was very different from ours. 
The idea of sacrifices may be illustrated by 
an incident from prosperous rural life. 

The married children of a landowner in 
affluent circumstances were in the habit to 
meet at a family reunion on certain days at the 
parental home. Aware of the interest their 
father took in his children's affairs and their 
prosperity, the latter had formed a habit of tak- 
ing something to the home of their childhood, 
which would show their thrift and good manage- 
ment and please the parents. 

" Do you want to take something to father 
to-morrow ?" asked the wife of the eldest son. 

" Yes, certainly. I want father to see what a 
fine young flock I have; I want to bring him 
the finest piece of that tender mutton I had 
killed. ,, 

" Your father has a larger flock than you, and 
your mother is going to have the last fattened 
turkey for dinner. Your mutton will not be 
needed," replied the wife. 

"Needed! No, of course not, but I engage 
father will have my roast in the place of honor. 
He is well pleased with these little attentions, 
and I am proud to show him my success at this 
early season." 

" Why do you take just these loveliest flowers 
to your mother, which are the chief ornament 
of your little conservatory? I like them espe- 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. Ill 

cially, because they remind me of the days of 
our wooing. You could have made a pretty 
bouquet without these choicest blossoms, which 
I will miss most." 

" Never mind, my dear. Mother loves these 
flowers as well as you do. They remind her. 
of the time when I was, as she says, the sun- 
shine of home. You have me now, and she 
shall have the flowers." There was an inclina- 
tion of her head towards his shoulder, and a 
kiss closed the controversy which proved the 
opening of a pleasant ride. 

" Your brother and sister always carry some- 
thing to give to your parents," remarked the 
wife of the younger son. "What shall we take 
to-day ? " 

" l£s a nuisance ; father has plenty of every- 
thing anyway, but I don't want to appear as if 
I did not care as much for him as the others. I 
have a good garden well advanced, but those 
fine firm heads of lettuce will bring- a good 
price, and my young potatoes will bring a better 
one. In a week there will be enough of them 
to sell ; I do not want to take any of these. I'll 
go myself and get some radishes and some of 
that small lettuce; they don't bring much now." 

At the cheerful family dinner the tender 
mutton occupied the place of honor, and che 
mother's favorite flowers adorned the table, but 
the younger son did not see his gifts. 

"I brought you something too, father, but 
my radishes and my lettuce are not here." 

"The radishes were too tough, and the let- 



112 REVIEW OF INGERSOLL. 

tuce being very small was too wilted for use. 
Besides, as you see, my garden is in advance of 
yours. I am blest with an abundance, and 
neither need nor expect your contributions, but 
they give me pleasure, and I appreciate your 
attention, the evidences of your affection and 
your prosperity and good management. Your 
gifts to-day, my son, were not prompted by 
these feelings nor an evidence of oood mana^e- 
ment ; therefore they give me no pleasure, and 
I do not accept them." 

Such was the difference between the offerings 
of Cain and Abel. At a later period we are 
informed that the children of Israel 

" Brought a willing offering unto the Lord/' 

and such only are accepted ; but God does not 
need them or desire them for his own benefit. 
He says : 

" I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or 
thy burnt-offerings, to have been continually 
before me. I will take no bullocks out of thy 
house, nor he-goats out of thy fold: for every 
beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon 
a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the 
mountains; and the wild beasts of the field are 
mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee : 
for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. 
Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood 
of goats? Offer unto God thanksgiving; and 
pay thy vows unto the Most High: and call 
upon me in the day of trouble : I will deliver 
thee, and thou shalt glorify me," 

THE END. 



Rbvibw 



OF 



Colonel r. g. ingersolus 



ATTACKS UPON CHRISTIANITY. 



BY 



MRS. OTTILIE BERTRON, 



AUTHOR OF "EDITH. 



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